On the French Second Empire

In his book, The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power, Roger Price offers an in-depth look at the regime of Napoleon III, sole ruler of the Second French Empire. Interestingly, this text does not read so much as a traditional narrative history, but as a collection of snapshots of the political structure of France during the 1850s and 1860s. Chapters are not arranged chronologically, but rather thematically, with the exception of two chapters on the rise of Napoleon III and the Franco-Prussian War, which bookend this text perfectly.

The body of the text is divided into two parts: “State and Society” and “The Rise of Opposition.” In “State and Society,” Price tackles topics that range from “preserving the public order” to “the system of government.” In “The Rise of Opposition,” Price breaks down the Second Empire’s opposition into four categories: legitimism, liberalism, republicanism in the immediate aftermath of the coup d’état that killed the Second Republic, and the “republican revival.” From this, we can see that Price holds true to his word when he calls his text an “anatomy” rather than a traditional history.

Structure aside, The French Second Empire is fundamentally a political history, and even this may be too loose of a description. Price pays attention to neither the politicization of the masses nor the drastic social changes sweeping across France under the Second Empire. Instead, his subject is focused squarely on the government. In each chapter, there is little indication that change occurs under the Second Empire, although Price does adhere to the traditional division of Napoleon III’s imperial rule into the categories of the authoritarian dictatorship and the liberal dictatorship.

Arguments that Price makes tend to be aimed at the scope of power that the government was capable of wielding. For example, he argues that, under the Second Empire, the state assumed a “far more substantial economic role than its predecessors” (5) and that the regime was incredibly capable at adapting to changing currents in French society. Price is also willing to recognize the limits of the strength of the Second Empire. While the Emperor was brutal at times, he did not possess the technology of rule necessary to inflict the devastation seen by rulers in the twentieth century. He also applauds the Second Empire for keeping one significant right guaranteed under the Second Republic: universal male suffrage.

As a veteran French historian, it should be no surprise that this text is well-researched and well-footnoted. Price relies extensively on primary sources, resulting in a voluminous bibliography filled with trips to five different archives, 24 different newspapers, a wide range of government documents, and countless other published sources. The secondary sources used by Price are not lacking either.

If there were any way this book could be improved, it would be to spend more time looking at the dynamic relationship between people and the state, while offering more of a chronology. Although, following my suggestions would lead Price to write a different book entirely—certainly not “an anatomy of political power.” This book is a useful introduction to the Second Empire, although the book can be dense at times. As it is, this book will be useful for anybody interested in nineteenth-century France.