Napoléon III, born on 20 April
1808, also known as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, was the first President
of the French Republic, and the last monarch of France. Made president by
popular vote in 1848, Napoleon III ascended to the throne on 2 December 1852,
the forty-eighth anniversary of his uncle, Napoleon I’s coronation. He
ruled as Emperor of the French until September 1870, when he was captured
in the Franco-Prussian War.
