Second French Empire

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte transformed the French Second Republic into the Second French Empire after the coup of December 1851 and the restoration of the imperial title in December 1852. Napoleon III governed through a centralised administration, police surveillance, censorship and managed elections while also encouraging railways, banking, industry and the rebuilding of Paris.

The regime gradually permitted more parliamentary opposition during the 1860s, but republican, royalist and socialist networks continued to challenge it. Foreign interventions in Italy and Mexico, rivalry with Prussia and the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War weakened the empire, which collapsed after Napoleon III was captured at Sedan in September 1870.

A Spy of Napoleon places its fictional agents within the political policing and aristocratic opposition of the empire’s final years. The novel uses Napoleon III’s suspicion of conspirators, covert recruitment and the divided loyalties of imperial society as the framework for Gérald de Lanoy and Eloise’s espionage.