Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier
Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier
Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier
Leonie and the last Napoleon by Tony Boullemier Napoleon III Backround information on Napoleon III and Leonie Napoleon III Excerpts from Leonie and the last Napoleon Napoleon III Press and reviews on Leonie and the last Napoleon Napoleon III Book signings, talks and lectures by Tony Boullemier Napoleon III Order your copy of Leonie and the last Napoleon Contact Tony Boullemier
Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier
Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier

Background to the Second Empire

Napoleon III France's Second Empire was almost entirely the invention of one man Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the first great Emperor. After spending most of his life in exile, he seized his chance to return in 1848 when the people overthrew France's last king, Louis-Philippe. He got himself elected to the National Assembly and immediately stood in the election for France's first president. He won in a landslide, thanks largely to voters who were seduced by the glamour of his name. In 1851 he staged a coup to extend his four year term to ten years and the following year he was elected as Emperor, again by a huge majority.

 

Napoleon III

Since the first Bonaparte had had a son who died young, but had been known to Bonapartistes as Napoleon II, this new Emperor took the title Napoleon III. He moved into the Tuileries Palace and the first half of his reign was highly successful. He reformed many aspects of French life, rebuilding the centre of Paris, promoting the growth of railways, banking, health care, commerce, shipbuilding and the telegraph.


Music, the arts and popular entertainment flourished and with its flickering gaslights, stirring Offenbach melodies and outrageous can-can revues, Paris became Europe's capital of light and pleasure. Taking their example from an Emperor with a wandering eye, the middle and upper classes partied like never before.

Napoleon and his Empress Eugenie forged a close friendship with Britain's Queen Victoria and many old enmities were buried when the two nations fought as allies in the Crimean War.

The Paris of Napoleon IIIBut foreign policy was where Napoleon III ultimately went wrong. He sought to exert influence across four continents, rather than to conquer countries like his uncle had done. But a succession of bad decisions culminated in a humiliating war with Prussia.

Paris was besieged and the Emperor was exiled again. This time it was to Chislehurst in Southern England, along with Eugenie and their only child, the Prince Imperial. From there he could only look on in horror as his former capital experienced the bloodiest revolution of them all.


 

 

 

 

 

 


Chislehurst Guide: http://Rands.Holman.org

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon III of France

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuileries Palace
Napoleon III
Tony Boullemier

Background to the Michel and Boullemier families

Leonie Michel was born in Paris in 1848, the year that Louis Napoleon returned there from exile. They also departed for England in the same year, 1871. She had many encounters with the Imperial Family and her father did cure the Emperor. Her brother certainly helped save the Empress's life and the remarkable story of the wedding day flower and the chance meeting with the wounded officer in Bar-le-Duc did take place. Leonie's husband Anton became a world-renowned ceramic artist with Mintons in Staffordshire. His work is still admired today, along with that of his son Lucien Emile
and grandson Lucien George, the author's father. They were also eminent ceramic artists at leading Staffordshire Potteries and then at Maling Pottery, Newcastle upon Tyne.
See:

www.thepotteries.org/potters/minton.htm

www.maling-pottery.org.uk

Background to the book cover:

The colour Magenta was named in 1859 just after the costly battle in Italy. The new dye had recently been developed in Paris and ladies there thought that the vivid colour resembled blood. The cover picture is by Jean Beraud (1849-1935).
An exact contemporary of Leonie, they could well have known one another. A friend of Manet, Degas and Renoir, his work has the spirit of Impressionism and owes something to the new art of photography. He frequently exhibited at the Salon
and in 1910 helped found the Sociéte Nationale des Beaux Arts.

See:  www.jeanberaud.com
Napoleon III
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Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier
Leonie and the last Napoleon - by Tony Boullemier