Presses Universitaires de France and Fremeaux & Associates offer this biography of Napoleon III, analyzed and explained by Xavier Mauduit, radio columnist, doctor of history, and specialist of the Second Empire. Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, is a complex character whose posterity is tainted by the violence of his detractors; "Napoleon the Little", "foul dwarf" which came under the pen of Victor Hugo forever mark his name. Yet, at the head of Bonapartism, well-considered and popular, Louis-Napoléon conquers the hearts of the French, and begins a strong policy of modernization, major works and the rise of France on the international scene. From princely birth to exile, ambitions of conquest to victory, Xavier Mauduit guides us in the apparent contradictions of a man of power who for nearly twenty years modeled France.