Bonapartists

A Bonapartiste was a person who either actively participated in, or advocated conservative, monarchist and imperial political faction in nineteenth century France. The Bonapartistes desired an Empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I of France) and his nephew Louis (Napoleon III of France). The honey bee, revived as a prominent political symbol in the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte to represent the virtues of the Bonapartist bureaucratic and political system, was also adopted by the Bonapartistes.

Bonapartism had its followers, from 1815 forward, among those who never accepted the defeat of Napoleon and France at Waterloo or the Congress of Vienna. With Napoleon I's death in exile on Saint Helena in 1821, many of these persons transferred their allegiance to other members of his family. After the death of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt (known to Bonapartists as Napoleon II), Bonapartist hopes were distributed among several different members of the family.

The disturbances of 1848 encouraged this group. Bonapartists played an essential role in the election of Napoleon I's nephew, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, as President of the Second Republic. They gave him the necessary political support when he discarded the constitution in 1852 and proclaimed the Second Empire. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte assumed the title Napoleon III, thereby acknowledging the brief reign of Napoleon's son Napoleon II in 1815 at the end of the Hundred Days.

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