v11_1900 - 20 francs or Napoléon III tête nue, Grand Lion 1855 Lyon F.531/8

SECOND EMPIRE

(2/12/1852-4/09/1870)

Napoleon III bareheaded

The Empire was proclaimed on December 2, 1852 and Napoleon III married Eugénie de Montijo (1826-1920) on January 29, 1853. Haussmann was appointed Prefect of the Seine on June 23, 1853 with a major urban planning project for the capital. France declared war on Russia on March 27, 1854, the start of the Crimean War. The French, allied with the English and the Turks, won the victory of Alma on September 20 and, on September 26, laid siege to Sevastopol, which fell on September 10, 1855. The Universal Exhibition in Paris began on May 15, 1855 and hosts 20,000 exhibitors and 5 million visitors. The Treaty of Paris of March 30, 1856 put an end to the Crimean War, the very year in which the Prince Imperial was born. The railway networks are reorganized and redistributed between the Péreire brothers and the Rothschilds. The publications of "Madame Bovary" by Flaubert and "Fleurs du mal" by Baudelaire in 1857 lead to their respective convictions for outrages against good morals.