{"id":8422,"date":"2015-01-20T07:08:43","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T12:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=8422"},"modified":"2015-01-23T07:04:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T12:04:33","slug":"philadelphia-and-the-second-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2015\/01\/philadelphia-and-the-second-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quaker City and the Second Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Henri_Baron_Dinner_at_The_Tuileries_1867\"<\/a>
“Dinner at the Tuileries” by Henri Baron, 1867. Emperor Napoleon III hosted many such grand affairs at the Tuileries Palace during the so-called Second Empire. Source: University of Indiana Bloomington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1851, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had the audacity — some might say hubris — to crown himself Emperor of France, just as his uncle had done half a century earlier. \u00a0He took the title of Napoleon III.<\/p>\n

French progressives such as author Victor Hugo despaired. \u00a0They had just overthrown another king — this time the bumbling, pear-shaped Louis-Philippe of the House of Orleans. \u00a0In the monarchy’s place, they had installed a republican style of government, and Louis-Napleon had successfully won the presidential campaign in 1848. \u00a0But Louis-Napoleon had no intention of remaining a mere elected official. \u00a0His lifelong dream was to reestablish the Bonaparte dynasty, and supposedly finish the work that his family had began during the French Revolution. To do that, he had to be not president, not king, but emperor<\/em>. \u00a0So only three years after his election, Louis-Napoleon engineered a coup d’etat to overthrow the Second Republic. \u00a0After much bloodshed and rioting in the streets of Paris, Louis-Napoleon and his partisans won the day. \u00a0The Bonaparte family was back in power.<\/p>\n

\"640px-Alexandre_Cabanel_002\"<\/a>
Alexandre Cabanel’s portrait of Emperor Napoleon III.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Victor Hugo himself was forced into exile, where he wrote three damning indictments of the new regime: Napoleon Le Petit<\/em> (Napoleon the Small<\/em>),\u00a0Histoire d\u2019un crime (A History of a Crime)<\/em>, and his poetry collection\u00a0<\/b>Les Ch\u00e2timents <\/em>(The Punishments<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Victor Hugo, \"Imperial Reveles\" from <\/strong>Les Ch\u00e2timents, 1852<\/em><\/strong><\/pre>\n
     Cheer, courtiers! round the banquet spread\u2014\r\n       The board that groans with shame and plate,\r\n     Still fawning to the sham-crowned head\r\n       That hopes front brazen turneth fate!\r\n     Drink till the comer last is full,\r\n     And never hear in revels' lull,\r\n     Grim Vengeance forging arrows fleet,\r\n           Whilst I gnaw at the crust\r\n           Of Exile in the dust\u2014\r\n     But Honor<\/i> makes it sweet!\r\n\r\n     Ye cheaters in the tricksters' fane,\r\n       Who dupe yourself and trickster-chief,\r\n     In blazing caf\u00e9s<\/i> spend the gain,\r\n       But draw the blind, lest at his<\/i> thief\r\n     Some fresh-made beggar gives a glance\r\n     And interrupts with steel the dance!\r\n     But let him toilsomely tramp by,\r\n           As I myself afar\r\n           Follow no gilded car\r\n     In ways of Honesty<\/i>.\r\n\r\n     Ye troopers who shot mothers down,\r\n       And marshals whose brave cannonade\r\n     Broke infant arms and split the stone\r\n       Where slumbered age and guileless maid\u2014\r\n     Though blood is in the cup you fill,\r\n     Pretend it \"rosy\" wine, and still\r\n     Hail Cannon \"King!\" and Steel the \"Queen!\"\r\n           But I prefer to sup\r\n           From Philip Sidney's cup\u2014\r\n     True soldier's draught serene.\r\n\r\n     Oh, workmen, seen by me sublime,\r\n       When from the tyrant wrenched ye peace,\r\n     Can you be dazed by tinselled crime,\r\n       And spy no wolf beneath the fleece?\r\n     Build palaces where Fortunes feast,\r\n     And bear your loads like well-trained beast,\r\n     Though once such masters you made flee!\r\n           But then, like me, you ate\r\n           Food of a blessed f\u00eate<\/i>\u2014\r\n     The bread of Liberty<\/i>!<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Why did the new emperor take the title Napoleon III? The reason was that Napoleon I’s infant son by Marie-Louise of Austria — his only legitimate heir — had technically reigned as Emperor of France for a few days after his father abdicated in 1814. \u00a0After his father’s defeat at Waterloo, little Napoleon Jr. was sent to live with his mother at Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna. \u00a0He died at 21. \u00a0He never saw his father again.<\/p>\n
[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PwY8hHEoCwQ&w=480&h=360]
\n“Le Grand Galopp de chemin de fer” by Emile Waldteufel (1837-1915), a popular dance music composer during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III. A celebration of the railroads connecting Paris to the rest of the country. Translation: “The Railroad Galop”<\/em><\/p>\n
[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IXVo2Ik1Tj0&w=480&h=360]
\n“Minuit” (Midnight) by Emile Waldteufel. The chimes supposedly represent the clocks in the Tuileries ballroom striking midnight. <\/em><\/p>\n
Now the leader of the Second Empire and ensconced in the grandeur of the Tuillieries Palace (the former Paris home of star-crossed predecessors Napoleon I and Louis XVI), Emperor Napoleon III started to refashion the old city of Paris into a modern, imperial city. \u00a0He hired city planner Baron George-Eugene Haussmann to lay out grand boulevards and oversee the construction of beautiful new apartment buildings to line them. \u00a0To accomplish this, Haussmann demolished huge swaths of the cramped medieval city, displacing thousands of residents. \u00a0He also built several new lavish railway stations, which connected Paris to the rest of the country. \u00a0Architect Hector-Martin Lefuel renovated both the royal residence at the Tuileries Palace and the Louvre museum, added grand new apartments in a neo-Baroque style. The crowning achievement of Napoleon III’s building program was the new opera house. Designed by Charles Garnier, the Paris Opera could seat 2,000 patrons in marbled, gilded splendor. The “Exposition Universelle de 1867” was arguably the high-water mark of the Second Empire — the world’s fair attracted nearly 10 million visitors from around the world. \u00a0Although its purpose was to allow nations to exhibit their artistic and industrial achievements, its real goal was to showcase Paris as the cultural capital of the world.Its success inspired a group of Philadelphia businessmen to mount a similar grand world’s fair in Fairmount Park nine years later.<\/p>\n
\"800px-Exposition_universelle_de_1867\"<\/a>
A bird’s eye view of Napoleon III’s dream project:; L’Exposition universelle de 1867. Source: Wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"640px-PierreTetarVanElvenF\u00eateAuxTuileries10juin1867\"<\/a>
The Tuileries Palace illuminated for the June 10, 1867 gala celebrating the world’s fair. Nine years later, Philadelphia would host its own exposition, attracting millions of visitors and entertaining heads of state in a similarly grand fashion. The palace itself, built by Queen Marie of France in the early 1600s, had been the official Paris residence of the Bourbon kings and the Bonaparte emperors. Napoleon III renovated it lavishly during his reign. Set afire by radical members of the Paris Commune in 1871, its ugly ruins stood for another ten years before they were cleared. \u00a0The Tuileries Gardens remain a popular gathering space for Parisians today. \u00a0 Painting by Pierre Tetar Van Elven. Source; Wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Napoleon III might have had superb taste in architecture, but he did not possess his uncle’s military genius. \u00a0In 1870, he made the mistake of underestimating Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia. \u00a0The Franco-Prussian War was sparked by disputes by succession to the Spanish throne and control of the Southern German states. This ill-advised war caused the Second Empire to collapse like a house of cards. \u00a0German troops captured Emperor Napoleon II at the Battle of Sedan, and besieged the city of Paris itself, starving the residents into submission. \u00a0In the mayhem that followed, Communard mobs burned down the Tuileries Palace, Hotel de Ville, and other symbols of imperial power. The Louvre itself almost burned down when flames spread from the adjoining Tuileries Palace. The incomplete Opera House was spared.<\/p>\n
France’s humiliation at the hands of Prussia and Bismarck sowed the seeds of another, deadlier conflict — one that would engulf all of Europe — forty years later.  As for the former Napoleon III: he was released from captivity and exiled to England, where he died a few years later. The Bonapartes were gone for good. <\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Union League, designed by John Fraser in the Second Empire style. Opened in May 1865, one month after the Treaty of Appomattox Courthouse, which ended hostilities between the Union and the Confederacy. Photograph: c.1975.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"37th<\/a>
Family resemblance to the Union League. Second Empire twin houses at 37th and Baring Streets, dating from c.1870. Note the surviving iron filigree work on the roofline. Photo dated December 14, 1962.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Despite the Second Empire’s wretched end, its grand aesthetic fascinated American architects and designers. Richard Morris Hunt, who studied at at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Lefuel in the 1840s, brought French formalism back to his American practice. The primary mentor of the young Frank Furness, Hunt designed mansions for wealthy Americans families such as the Vanderbilts — most notably the Breakers for Cornelius Vanderbilt II — as well as grand public buildings such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. \u00a0During Napoleon III’s reign, Paris’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) trained an entire generation of American architects artists whose work would transform American culture: Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Chester Holmes Aldrich, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, Alexander Stirling Calder (son of the sculptor of the William Penn statue atop City Hall), and Thomas Hastings, to name a few. Paul Philippe Cret, a distinguished professor at the University of Pennsylvania and designer of the Parisian-style Benjamin Franklin Parkway, was also a Beaux-Arts graduate.<\/p>\n
\"Palais_Garnier_Grand_Escalier_d'Honneur_-_Garnier_1880_vol2_plate8\"<\/a>
The grand staircase of the Paris Opera. Its palatial interiors inspired the public rooms of Philadelphia’s City Hall. Source: Wikipedia.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In the decade following the Civil War, Gilded Age Philadelphia threw Quaker modesty out the window. The city was richer than ever, with fortunes made in railroads, manufacturing, and (in the case of future streetcar plutocrat Peter Widener) provisioning the Union Army. The Union League, designed by John Fraser and completed in 1865, was perhaps the first large-scale Second Empire structure in the city. Housing developers caught the French bug, as well. \u00a0Starting in the 1870s, row houses in Philadelphia adopted the mansard roof, a favorite architectural device of Second Empire architects. \u00a0The term “mansard” was a corruption of Jules-Hardouin Mansart, a baroque architect who popularized the hipped gambrel roof during the reign of Louis XIV. \u00a0This architectural device became \u00a0a French trademark. It was not only used on royal palaces, but also on the apartment blocks built by Baron Haussmann in Paris during the 1850s and 60s. A wood-and-slate “mansard roof” not only made a house look more imposing on the outside, but also made the attic story \u00a0habitable while minimizing construction costs. Because a mansard roof is set back from the cornice line, it use also allowed builders to comply with setback restrictions while maximizing rents.<\/p>\n
\"4407<\/a>
A Second Empire style house at 4407 Baltimore Avenue, dating from the 1870s. Photo dated August 24, 1951.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The grandest testament to the Second Empire style’s cultural impact in Philadelphia is City Hall. \u00a0In 1871, the same year as the fall of Napoleon III’s regime, Scottish-born architect John McArthur Jr. began construction of this grandiose and expensive essay in the Second Empire style. \u00a0Modeled heavily on the Lefuel’s additions to the Louvre in Paris and smothered in allegorical statues, the stone structure took thirty years to complete, by which time it was out-of-step with the cleaner lines of the neoclassical style.<\/p>\n
\"City<\/a>
The new Philadelphia City Hall illuminated on Founder’s Day, October 1908.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Although the largest municipal building in the world at the time of its opening in 1901, critics did not herald it as an American Louvre.\u00a0Rather, it was greeted as a monument to hubris, corruption, and expensive bad taste.<\/p>\n
Much like the excesses of Napoleon III’s regime three decades earlier. In the 1950s, city planner Edmund Bacon proposed tearing the vast edifice down, sparing only the clock tower, which was crowned by Alexander Stirling Calder’s statue of William Penn. Only the cost of demolition saved City Hall from destruction.<\/p>\n
\"Burning_of_th_Tuilleries2\"<\/a>
The destruction of the Tuileries Palace during the revolt of the Paris Commune, 1871. The Louvre Palace, which housed France’s priceless collection of art, was saved by hardworking firefighters and Paris citizens. Source: University of Indiana at Bloomington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Sources: <\/strong><\/p>\n
Jean-Bertrand Barr\u00e8re, “Victor Hugo,” Encyclopedia Britannica, November 12, 2014.
\nhttp:\/\/www.britannica.com\/EBchecked\/topic\/274974\/Victor-Hugo\/3353\/Exile-1851-70<\/p>\n
“The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Victor Hugo”
\nhttp:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/8775\/8775-h\/8775-h.htm#link2H_4_0106<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1851, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had the audacity — some might say hubris — to crown himself Emperor of France, just as his uncle had done half a century earlier. \u00a0He took the title of Napoleon III. French progressives such as author Victor Hugo despaired. \u00a0They had just overthrown another king — this time the bumbling, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}