Free The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 by Alistair Horne

‘Principle’ led him to show sympathy for Polish aspirations of independence—which cost him mighty Russia’s friendship, while not benefiting the unhappy Poles; most dangerous of all, the example that he had set in the unificationof Italy morally forced him not to interfere with Bismarck’s scheme to unite the German principalities under Prussia, which eventually was to cause his downfall.
    Had Louis-Napoleon succeeded in his pursuit of ‘ la gloire ’, the dynasty might have been assured a much longer life in France, whatever the forces arrayed against him at home, and the Commune would never have happened. As things turned out, it constantly eluded his grasp, and his awareness of this forced him out on to still more dangerous quicksands in its quest. In 1866 Prussia flattened Austria, after a lightning campaign of unsurpassed brilliance which ended at Sadowa. The largest obstacle to German unification was eliminated and overnight Prussia appeared as a new and deadly challenge to France’s traditional status in Europe. Moreover, to Louis-Napoleon who had placed his money on Austria, Bismarck’s triumph came as a personal slight. To repair his ruffled pride he ill-advisedly demanded ‘compensations’, as a reward for his neutrality. These would principally have been at the expense of little Luxembourg, but they also included claims to German territory on the left bank of the Rhine. The over-all result was that Britain now took fright that France had dishonest intentions towards her protégé, Belgium; Germans of both North and South were united in their resentment of French demands; and Bismarck squared up to the fact that sooner or later France would have to be fought before German ambitions could be realized. Louis-Napoleon received no ‘tip’ (this was how Bismarck contemptuously termed his policy of ‘compensations’) for his services, and once again ‘ la gloire ’ proved elusive. Next, Louis-Napoleon’s craziest adventure of all—the creation of a Latin-Catholic Empire in Mexico into which he had been pushed by his Spanish Empress—collapsed in ruins. The French forces, commanded by an ill-starred general called Bazaine, were forced to evacuate, leaving Louis-Napoleon’s puppet ‘Emperor’, Maximilian, to be shot by Mexican nationalists; and here the only net gain was American hostility.
    The year of the Great Exhibition and the calamity in Mexico, 1867, marked the turning-point of the reign. As the fateful year of 1870 approached and all Louis-Napoleon’s foreign designs were seen to have ended in disaster, his subjects grew more and more restless. As the Government relinquished its electoral manipulations of the early days, at each successive election the Republicans showed themselves to be increasingly powerful, until in 1869 they had captured Paris and most of the big cities. All else having failed, Louis-Napoleon turned in despair to reform at home. He would convert the regime into a ‘Liberal Empire’, himself into a constitutional monarch. Butit was too late. When the new Law on the Press was passed, repealing the tough laws of 1852 and lifting censorship, it was like the genie released from the bottle. The ‘yellow’ Republican Press began to insult the ruling family in a way that had never before been seen outside a time of revolution. The attack was spearheaded by Rochefort’s La Lanterne with its brick-red cover; a kind of Private Eye of the times, but an infinitely more deadly scourge. For three months it provided Paris with its greatest amusement since La Grande Duchesse . 1 Then Rochefort was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. He chose instead to flee to Brussels (later he was amnestied and returned in triumph to Paris). But the damage was done; a mortal blow had been struck at the respect of the Empire, and the irreverence was contagious. With the Law on Assemblies relaxed, the ‘Red’ Clubs of the extreme Republicans once again began to meet, now in an atmosphere of