19th Century & Belle Époque
After Napoleon, France oscillated for decades between monarchy, empire, and republic. The Restoration brought back the Bourbons, the July Revolution of 1830 installed the "Citizen King" Louis-Philippe, the February Revolution of 1848 proclaimed the Second Republic, and Napoleon's nephew Napoleon III first made himself president, then emperor of the Second Empire.
Under Napoleon III, the urban planner Baron Haussmann radically transformed Paris: The narrow medieval alleys gave way to wide boulevards, magnificent squares, and uniform facades with the typical zinc roofs. The Paris known to the world — with its elegant streets, cafés on the sidewalks, and grand axes — is essentially Haussmann's work.
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 led to disaster: France lost, Napoleon III was captured, and Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to the new German Empire. In Paris, rebellious workers proclaimed the Commune (1871), which was crushed in a bloody civil war with over 20,000 dead. The memory of the Commune remains alive in the French left to this day.
The Third Republic (1870–1940) stabilized surprisingly quickly. The Belle Époque (ca. 1880–1914) became a golden era: Paris shone as the "Ville Lumière" (City of Light) with electric lighting, the Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair (and was supposed to be dismantled again), the Impressionists revolutionized art, and the Moulin Rouge opened in the entertainment district of Montmartre. France built a vast colonial empire, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia.
The Dreyfus Affair (1894–1906) — the wrongful conviction of the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus for alleged espionage — tore society apart and ultimately led to the strict separation of church and state (secularism) through the 1905 law, which still shapes France today.
