In 1831, he and his older brother took part in the rebellion in Romagna against the temporal power of the Pope and the Austrians, a failure in which his brother died and he himself nearly lost his life. The Italian cause did not leave him indifferent either. Moved by the Greek revolt against Ottoman domination, he wanted to fight by their side like the rest of the romantic youth from Byron to Delacroix, but as a minor he yielded to the paternal authority which formally forbade him to do so. In fact, he did not wait to be in power to put his ideas into practice. To ensure its independence in the face of such powers, France had to come to an understanding with other European nations, particularly with other Latin peoples. Like De Tocqueville, the young prince prophesied the emergence of two giants: Russia and the United States. The Congress of Vienna demolished his projects. He also defended the politics of his uncle as he learned about them reading Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène when it was published in 1823, and as he dreamed of them himself: Napoleon I in fact would have waged only defensive wars to protect the benefits of the Revolution and the integrity of France, with a desire to free subjugated peoples, build a fairer Europe, and ensure peace through a large confederation of nations. He wrote in the purest idealistic romanticism: “All peoples are brothers and will embrace one another in the face of dethroned tyranny, with the earth consoled and humanity satisfied” If the right of nations to self-determination was not met, the abyss of revolutions risked opening up again, this time irredeemably. Like many of his contemporaries, he believed that from the Revolution onwards France was fulfilling a mission towards Europe and had to open the way for the emancipation of other peoples. He tackled the question of Europe from his very first writings. He had a gift for languages, and quickly learned to express himself in Italian, German, and English with the same ease as he did in French, and in Spanish as well after his marriage. Upon the fall of the Empire in 1815, he began a life of exile that led him to Switzerland, Bavaria, Baden, Florence, Rome, and England. Born in 1808 in the capital of a major European empire founded by his uncle Napoleon I, he was the son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnais, who ruled over Holland at the time. The youth of the future emperor of the French, Napoleon III, predisposed him to take a close interest in Europe.

Napoleon the third