Coup of 2 December 1851: Louis-Napoleon Ends the Republic

The coup of 2 December 1851 was the seizure of power by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, President of the French Second Republic, who used the army to dissolve the National Assembly and silence his opponents. Resistance in Paris and the provinces was crushed within days, and a plebiscite gave him overwhelming approval. Exactly a year later he proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III.

Background: a president who could not stay

The Second Republic was born in the February Revolution of 1848, part of the wider Revolutions of 1848. Its constitution created a powerful president, elected directly by all adult men, but limited him to one four-year term with no immediate re-election.

In December 1848 Louis-Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I, won the first presidential election with about 74 per cent of the vote, some 5.4 million ballots. His famous name appealed to peasants, workers and conservatives alike. He had twice tried to overthrow King Louis-Philippe, in 1836 and 1840, and had escaped from prison in 1846.

The Legislative Assembly elected in 1849 was dominated by monarchists of the so-called Party of Order. In May 1850 it passed a law adding residence requirements that removed roughly 3 million poorer men from the voting rolls. The president, posing as the defender of the people, later called for universal suffrage to be restored.

His term was due to end in 1852. In July 1851 a motion to revise the constitution to allow his re-election won a majority, 446 votes to 278, but fell short of the three-quarters required. From that point he and a small circle of allies prepared to act outside the law.

Planning the coup

The plan, code-named “Rubicon”, was prepared by a handful of men. The most important were the president’s half-brother, Charles de Morny; his loyal adviser Victor de Persigny; the newly appointed Minister of War, General Armand de Saint-Arnaud; and the Prefect of Police, Charlemagne de Maupas.

Saint-Arnaud had been brought back from Algeria and placed reliable officers in key commands around Paris. The date chosen was 2 December, the anniversary of Napoleon I’s coronation in 1804 and of the victory at Austerlitz in 1805. The symbolism echoed the uncle’s own Coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799.

What happened on 2 December

In the early hours of 2 December troops occupied the Palais Bourbon, where the Assembly sat, and key points across Paris. Police arrested about 16 deputies and other leaders in their beds, among them the generals Changarnier, Cavaignac, Lamoricière and Bedeau and the politician Adolphe Thiers.

At dawn Parisians found posters on the walls. They announced that the Assembly was dissolved, that universal male suffrage was restored and that the people would be asked to approve a new constitution by plebiscite. The appeal to the voters was meant to present the coup as a defence of democracy against a reactionary Assembly.

Some 200 or more deputies gathered at the town hall of the 10th arrondissement, voted to depose the president and were promptly arrested by soldiers. A committee of republican deputies, including Victor Hugo, tried to organise armed resistance in the working-class districts.

Resistance and repression

On 3 December a few barricades went up in eastern Paris. The deputy Alphonse Baudin was shot dead on a barricade in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, reportedly after workers mocked deputies for their daily allowance. He became a martyr of the republican cause.

The decisive day was 4 December. As crowds gathered along the Grands Boulevards, troops opened fire, killing many bystanders as well as insurgents. Estimates of the dead in Paris range from about 200 to around 400. The shootings ended resistance in the capital and became the regime’s original stain.

The provinces saw more serious resistance, especially in rural areas of the centre and south-east, such as the Var, Basses-Alpes and Nièvre, where secret republican societies were strong. These risings were put down by the army, and the government used them to depict the opposition as dangerous “reds”.

Repression was widespread. Around 26,000 people were arrested. Special “mixed commissions” judged them without normal trials; about 9,500 were sentenced to transportation to Algeria and a few hundred to the penal colony of French Guiana. Dozens of deputies, including Hugo, were expelled from France.

Key people

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1808-1873) was the son of Napoleon I’s brother Louis, King of Holland. Years of exile and conspiracy had given him a belief in his destiny and a programme mixing authority, order and social improvement, set out in his pamphlet on the extinction of poverty.

Charles de Morny (1811-1865), his half-brother through their mother Hortense de Beauharnais, became Minister of the Interior on the night of the coup and directed operations with cool efficiency. He later presided over the Legislative Body of the Second Empire.

Armand de Saint-Arnaud (1798-1854), Minister of War, commanded the troops in Paris. He was made a Marshal of France and died in 1854 while commanding the French army in the Crimean War.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885), the celebrated novelist and poet, had moved from conservatism to republicanism. His nineteen years of exile made him the most famous opponent of the Second Empire.

From president to emperor

On 20 and 21 December 1851 voters were asked to approve the president’s action and grant him power to draw up a constitution. The official result was about 7.4 million votes in favour to about 640,000 against, with many abstentions. Pressure and the absence of free debate shaped the vote, but most historians accept that the coup had broad rural support.

The constitution of 14 January 1852 gave the president a ten-year term and very wide powers, with a weak legislature and controlled press. In autumn 1852 a tour of the country prepared opinion for the next step. A second plebiscite in November approved the restoration of the empire by about 7.8 million votes to 250,000, and the Second Empire was proclaimed on 2 December 1852.

Legacy

The coup created the Second Empire, which lasted until Napoleon III’s defeat and capture at the Battle of Sedan in 1870. The regime brought economic growth, railway building and the rebuilding of Paris, but it was founded on force.

The events shaped political thought. Karl Marx analysed them in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), opening with his remark, borrowed from Hegel and sharpened, that great historical events occur twice, first as tragedy and then as farce. From exile, Hugo attacked the emperor in Napoleon le Petit and in his account of the coup, Histoire d’un crime.

For French republicans, 2 December remained a symbol of betrayal. Baudin’s grave became a rallying point in 1868, and the Third Republic later made a point of honouring the victims of the coup.

Timeline

• 1848, 10 December: Louis-Napoleon is elected President of the Republic.
• 1850, 31 May: A new electoral law removes about 3 million men from the voting rolls.
• 1851, 19 July: The Assembly fails to reach the majority needed to allow his re-election.
• 1851, 2 December: Troops occupy Paris and the Assembly is dissolved.
• 1851, 3 December: Deputy Alphonse Baudin is killed on a barricade.
• 1851, 4 December: Troops fire on crowds on the Grands Boulevards.
• 1851, 20-21 December: A plebiscite approves the coup.
• 1852, 14 January: A new authoritarian constitution is issued.
• 1852, 2 December: The Second Empire is proclaimed.

Why it matters

The coup of 2 December 1851 showed how an elected leader could use plebiscites and appeals to popular sovereignty to destroy a parliamentary republic. It turned the Second Republic into the Second Empire and remains a classic case study in how democracies can be overthrown from within.