Napoleon III

Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon I, was the first president of France, from 1848 to 1852, and the last French monarch, from 1852 to 1870. First elected president of the Second French Republic in 1848, he seized power by force in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be re-elected, and became the Emperor of the French. He founded the Second French Empire and was its only emperor, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He worked to modernize the French economy, rebuilt the center of Paris, expanded the French overseas empire, and engaged in the Crimean War, the Second Italian War of Independence, and the ultimately disastrous war of 1870, in which he served alongside his soldiers during the fight, an uncommon action for a head of state to perform in the modern era.