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Article: Napoleon III and His Carnival Empire.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- April 15, 1989
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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NAPOLEON III AND HIS CARNIVAL EMPIRE.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, political thinker disastrously turned politician, thought that he and his friends could use Louis Napoleon. Bismarck, who destroyed the man and the empire, thought there was nothing there to use: Louis Napoleon was "a sphinx without a riddle". Undeterred, John Bierman gives a spirited account of the man who ruled France from 1848 to 1870.
Mr Bierman sensibly emphasises Louis Napoleon's precocious grasp of the new mass politics. A genuine populism, proclamations as sonorous as they were empty, and provincial whistle-stop tours won the pretender nationwide support, and in December 1848 the ...