ABSTRACT
Generations of French historians, especially those of republican or leftist persuasion, have dismissed the Second Empire as a comic opera regime of no real consequence or, worse, as a repressive, authoritarian government that futilely resisted France's march toward democracy and social justice. In Europe, popular nationalism and social equality had mounted a frontal challenge to the established order in the first half of the nineteenth century, only to be beaten back in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions. The combination of economic prosperity and political repression forced the republican and socialist left underground during the authoritarian empire. The imperial decree of November 24, 1860, the formal beginning of the liberal empire, gave the legislature greater power over the government ministry with the right to review the emperor's annual speech. The last years of the Second Empire were dominated by its increasingly tense relations with Prussia. The Prussians soon complied, persuaded by the opposition of the other major European powers.
