sáb., 6 de jan. de 1979
On May 20, 1815, Napoleon I, having escaped from Elba, returned to power for the Hundred Days. In the crowd at the Tuileries, an eight-year-old boy, Charles-Louis, accompanied by his mother, Hortense de Beauharnais, shared the general enthusiasm. He was the emperor's nephew. His mother raised him in Switzerland, in the cult of his uncle, and the young prince dreamed of the imperial throne. After attending college in Augsburg and military school in Thun and becoming an artillery officer, the young man took part in the insurrection of the Italian liberals and, in 1836, attempted a coup d'état in Strasbourg against the July monarchy. This failed and he was exiled. In 1840, he attempted a landing at Boulogne and found himself imprisoned for life at the Fort de Ham. He escaped and went to England wearing the clothes of the mason Badinguet. Who could have imagined then that a few years later Louis Napoléon would become President of the Republic? And from 1852 onward, emperor like his uncle, under the name of Napoleon III?