French Emporer. Born Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the third son of Hortense de Beauharnais, stepdaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte, and Louise Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, he was raised in Switzerland during the family's banishment from France. He became interested in history and nationalism at an early age, and after the death of his brother in an unsuccessful plot against the papal government in Rome in 1830, and of his cousin, the Duke of Reichstadt, in 1832, he considered himself heir to his uncle's Imperial throne. That year, he published a pamphlet; “Rêveries politiques” in which he asserted that only an emperor could return France to glory and liberty. A failed coup in 1836 left him in exile in the United States, only to be recalled to his mother's deathbed the following year. In 1839 he published “Des idées napoléoniennes,” in which he equated Bonapartism to a political ideology. Another failed coup in 1840 led to his arrest and imprisonment. Upon his escape in 1846, he fled to Great Britain. After the revolution of 1848, supporters organized a Bonapartist party, and nominated him as their candidate for the Assembly. After taking his seat, he worked from within far more successfully than he had previously. In a run for President of the Second Republic in December 1848, his propaganda campaign ensured that he was the only candidate to win votes. As president, he packed key positions in the army and government with his adherents. At the end of his term, he staged a successful coup and overthrew the Republic in order to remain in power. He dissolved the Assembly and put forward a new constitution. In November 1852, he was confirmed as Emperor of France. As such, he supported inventors and took an interest in the building of a modern Paris. He pushed through a lower price on bread, and established boards of arbitration. He also founded the Musée des Antiquités Nationales (National Antiquities Museum). In 1858, allied with Piedmont-Sardinia, he went to war against Austria in order remove them from Italy. In 1861, he made the Austrian archduke, Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico in hopes of profits for France later, but was forced out of the New World instead. By 1869 his health was failing, and in July 1870, goaded by the actions of Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck, he declared war on Prussia. The subsequent Franco-Prussian War went poorly, and despite apparent attempts to be killed in action, during the Battle of Sedan, he was captured. He was deposed in absentia two days later, and the Third Republic of France was declared. Released by the Germans in 1871, he retired to England, where he died two years later as a result of an operation to remove bladder stones.