The nephew of Napoleon I, Louis Napoleon spent his youth with
his mother, Hortense de Beauharnais, in Switzerland and Germany
and became a captain in the Swiss army. Animated by a mixture of
liberalism and Bonapartism, he indulged (1830–31) in
revolutionary activities in Italy. In 1836 he attempted a
ludicrous military coup at Strasbourg and was exiled to the
United States by the government of Louis Philippe. He managed to
return to Switzerland, but French protests at his proximity
finally caused him to depart (1838) for England. In 1840 he
again attempted an insurrection, this time at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
He was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. Detained in the
fortress of Ham, Somme department, he wrote letters, pamphlets,
and books, among them a mildly socialistic work on the
extinction of pauperism. He made an easy escape in 1846, walking
out disguised as a laborer, and went to England. Sections in
this article: The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press