Napoleon III & Louis-Philippe I - Sons of the Revolution

The turmoil and upheaval that was France from the convening of the Estates-General by Louis XVI on May 4, 1789 until September 28, 1958 when the French approved the Constitution of the Fifth French Republic written by Charles de Gaulle produced two Bourbon kingdoms, an Orleanist kingdom, two empires, a directory, a consulate and five republics and thus France was ruled by many different men. The first French revolution had produced its fair share of good in the principles upon which it was founded and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and also had produced many evils such as the excesses of the terror. Needless to say; a nation that had only known the absolute rule of Carolingian, Capetian, Valois and Bourbon Kings for more than a thousand years hence was bound to endure a long, hard road on the path to permanent democratic government. During the moments of the greatest instability the French people looked to the only two things that were up until this time consistent in their history: monarchy and romance. Louis Philippe d'Orlean and Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became the monarchs of France because they were each the inheritors of their own legends, because the old Bourbon and Bonapartist monarchies brought memories of a more stable and secure period and because the men both cultivated an imagery of Republicanism although they attempted to rule as autocrats. Tragically they both fell from power for failing to fulfill the very romantic legends that were their foundations: Louis-Philippe I failed to be a true "Citizen King" and Napoleon III failed to be the great winner of military glory as his Uncle the first Napoleon had been.