1851 French coup d'état
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The coup d'état of 2 December 1851 was a self-coup staged by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, at the time President of France under the Second Republic. Code-named Operation Rubicon and timed to coincide with the anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation and victory at Austerlitz, the coup dissolved the National Assembly, granted dictatorial powers to the president and preceded the establishment of the Second French Empire a year later.
Proclamations of the decree issued by the president and executed by his Minister of the Interior, Charles de Morny, were placarded throughout Paris on 2 December
D'Allonville's cavalry in the streets of Paris during the coup d'état
Montagnard deputy Jean-Baptiste Baudin in the barricades of Paris on 3 December, where he was killed by coup forces
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac
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Louis-Eugène Cavaignac was a French general and politician who served as head of the executive power of France between June and December 1848, during the French Second Republic.
Portrait by François-Gabriel Lépaulle, 1848
Cavaignac and his military staff reviewing the troops on 3 September 1848
Cavaignac by Ary Scheffer