On Jan. 29-30, 1853, Napoleon married Eugenie de Montijo. The chief event of the early portion of this reign was the Crimean complication, in which, largely through the influence of Napoleon and his advisers, an alliance was formed by England, France, and Turkey against the demands of Russia, and war was declared on March 27, 1854. Several large public loans were negotiated in open market (almost the first time this had been done in France), to provide for the expenses of carrying on the naval and military operations, and active warfare was almost immediately begun in the Black and Baltic seas and on the Crimean peninsula. The conduct of the war by the French government largely increased the military prestige of the nation, as well as the popularity and strength of Napoleon's rule, especially as during its continuance measures for enhancing the domestic prosperity of the country were by no means neglected. An international exhibition and the meeting of a statistical congress took place in Paris in 1855, and during the same year several personal visits of European sovereigns to the French capital tended to give Napoleon a recognition which was not at first accorded to him. Two unsuccessful attempts at the assassination of the new emperor were, however, made during the same period.

On March 10, 1856, the prince imperial was born at the Tuileries. On March 30 peace was concluded with Russia, France coming out of the conflict with the prestige of the first military power of Europe, while the French government also rapidly acquired great diplomatic influence. Napoleon was made arbiter in several important questions between European powers; and he added to his influence at home by taking part in the war against China in the East, and by occupying New Caledonia. In 1858 another attempt was made to assassinate him, on this occasion by Orsini and his fellow conspirators, several of whom suffered death. The affairs of Italy now began to occupy attention, and Napoleon's decision to interfere in Italian matters against the Austrian government, first openly intimated in January, 1859, led to the declaration of war against Austria in May of that year. The conflict which followed, though leaving the affairs of Italy in a somewhat undecided state, added to the French military prestige, and the peace of Villafranca, July 11, 1859, which was confirmed by the treaty of Zurich in November, left France in a position of even greater authority than before in European politics.

In 1860 Savoy and Nice were ceded to France by Italy, as had probably been secretly arranged with Victor Emanuel before the war. This act excited among the other European powers the greatest suspicions of Napoleon's designs, which were not allayed until after his interview with several of the leading German princes at Baden in June, at which he expressed himself satisfactorily to them as regarded his further intentions. During all this period Napoleon had not discontinued his activity in the East, and especially in the colonies. The war in China terminated successfully for the allies, by the capture of Peking in October, 1860. Those gradual aggressions in Further India, which terminated in 1863 in the French occupation of Cochin China and in the establishment of a protectorate over Cambodia (see Cambodia, and Cochin China), had also begun. In 1860-61 an expedition was sent to Syria to protect the Christians there from such violence as had been exhibited shortly before in the Damascus massacres.-But while the French prestige was greatly increased in the East by these acts and successes, the emperor's schemes for establishing the Hapsburg prince Maximilian on the throne of Mexico ended in so ignominious a failure as to do much toward undermining the opinion of his power that had been held in Europe; nor could the course which European affairs themselves took in the few years next succeeding be other than dangerous to the continued influence of France. The rapid aggrandizement of Prussia was especially regarded with a jealous eye by the French government, and Napoleon in vain endeavored to prevent by diplomatic measures the results which he foresaw from the Schleswig-Holstein war, and the war of Prussia against Austria in 1866. Among these were his efforts to obtain possession of Luxemburg, resulting in the neutralization of that territory.

The internal affairs of France during this period had also been of much importance. The conclusion in 1860 of a commercial treaty with England, strongly in the interest of free trade, had created a great excitement and vehement opposition among the manufacturers and industrial classes of the empire, and led to much debate in the corps legislatif. In November of the same year an imperial decree made several changes in the powers and rights of the senate and legislative body, which permitted much greater freedom in the interpellation of ministers, and in criticism of the acts of the government. This decree was followed by several other somewhat liberal measures, among them two which placed the vote on the financial budget in the hands of the corps legislatif, and also conferred on that body the power over appropriations, etc, which had before been settled simply by an imperial decree. The laws concerning the press were also somewhat lightened; but the tendency toward a more liberal government manifested in these acts of the emperor did not long continue.

The decrees concerning the corps legislatif. however, permitted the growth in that assembly of an opposition party which rapidly gained in numbers and influence, was considerably increased at the next elections (1863), and during the decade between 1860 and 1870 contributed greatly to the growth of public opinion against the Napoleonic government. The failing fortunes of the Mexican expedition, the various diplomatic defeats suffered by the emperor in his European negotiations, the endeavors of the government partly to interfere with the elections in the departments, the unsatisfactory management of the finances, and many other causes, combined to rapidly increase this feeling, which, assisted by the publication of political satires and pamphlets, became every day more formidable. The course which Napoleon pursued during the Prusso-Austrian war in 1866 did not tend to restore confidence in him; and the excuses by which his ministers sought to smooth over the obviously vacillating and feeble policy he had pursued during its continuance and after its close, and the open rebuffs he had met with from the Prussian government, rather aided than checked the growing opposition.