In Focus - Discover France: Experience the Best of France - page 708

Atlantic, where he died in 1821. His body was later reburied under the Hôtel des In-
valides in Paris.
New Republics
Post-Napoléon, France was dogged by a string of ineffectual rulers until Napoléon's
nephew, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, came to power. He was initially elected presid-
ent, but declared himself Emperor (Napoléon III) in 1851.
While the so-called Second Empire ran roughshod over many of the ideals set
down during the Revolution, it actually proved to be a relatively prosperous time.
France enjoyed significant economic growth and Paris was transformed by the urb-
an planner Baron Haussmann, who created the famous twelve boulevards radiating
from the Arc de Triomphe (including the celebrated Champs-Élysées).
But like his uncle, Napoléon III's ambition was his undoing. A series of costly con-
flicts, including the Crimean War (1854-56), culminated in humiliating defeat by the
Prussian forces in 1870. France was once again declared a republic - for the third
time in less than a century.
The Belle Époque
The Third Republic got off to a shaky start: another war with the Prussians resulted
in a huge war bill and the surrender of Alsace and Lorraine. But the period also
ushered in a new era of culture and creativity that left an enduring mark on France's
national character.
The belle époque ('beautiful age'), as it came to be known, was an era of unpre-
cedented innovation. Architects built a host of exciting new buildings and trans-
formed the face of many French cities. Engineers laid the tracks of France's first
railways and tunnelled out the metro system still used by millions of Parisians today.
Designers experimented with new styles and materials, while young artists invented
a host of new 'isms' (including Impressionism, which took its title from one of
Claude Monet's seminal early paintings, Impression, Soleil Levant ).
The era culminated in a lavish Exposition Universelle (World Fair) in Paris in
1889, an event that seems to sum up the excitement and dynamism of the age, and
also inspired the construction of one of the nation's most iconic landmarks - the Eif-
fel Tower.