Bonapartism

Bonapartism is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term, originated by Karl Marx, is used in the narrow sense to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In this sense, a Bonapartiste was a person who either actively participated in or advocated for imperial political factions in 19th-century France. Although Bonapartism emerged in 1814 with the first fall of Napoleon, it only developed doctrinal clarity and cohesion by the 1840s.
The term developed a broad definition used to mean political movements that advocate for an authoritarian centralised state, with a military strongman and charismatic leader with relatively traditionalist ideology.

Beliefs

and Leninism developed a vocabulary of political terms that included Bonapartism, derived from analysis of the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Karl Marx, a student of Jacobinism and the French Revolution, was a contemporary critic of the Second Republic and the Second Empire.
Noted political scientists and historians greatly differ on the definition and interpretation of Bonapartism. Sudhir Hazareesingh's book The Legend of Napoleon explores numerous interpretations of the term.

Bonapartist claimants

List of Bonapartist claimants to the French throne since 1814

Those who ruled are indicated with an asterisk.

Claimant	Portrait	Birth	Marriages	Death
Napoleon I* 1814–1815 1815–1821		15 August 1769, Ajaccio Son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino	Joséphine de Beauharnais 9 March 1796 No children Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma 11 March 1810 1 child	5 May 1821 Longwood, Saint Helena Aged 51
Napoleon II* 1811–1832		20 March 1811, Paris Son of Napoleon I and Marie Louise of Austria	Never married	22 July 1832 Vienna Aged 21
Joseph Bonaparte ' 1832–1844		7 January 1768, Corte Son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino	Julie Clary 1 August 1794 2 children	28 July 1844 Florence Aged 76
Louis Bonaparte ' 1844–1846		2 September 1778, Ajaccio Son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino	Hortense de Beauharnais 4 January 1802 3 children	25 July 1846 Livorno Aged 67
Napoleon III* 1846–1873 President of France Emperor of the French		20 April 1808, Paris Son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnais	Eugénie de Montijo 30 January 1853 1 child	9 January 1873 Chislehurst Aged 64
Napoléon, Prince Imperial ' 1873–1879		16 March 1856, Paris Son of Napoleon III and Eugénie de Montijo	Never married	1 June 1879 Zulu Kingdom Aged 23
Prince Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte ' 1879–1891		9 September 1822, Trieste Son of Jérôme, King of Westphalia and Catharina of Württemberg	Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy 30 January 1859 3 children	17 March 1891 Rome Aged 68
Victor, Prince Napoléon ' 1879–1926		18 July 1862, Palais-Royal Son of Prince Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte and Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy	Princess Clémentine of Belgium 10/14 November 1910 2 children	3 May 1926 Brussels Aged 63
Louis, Prince Napoléon ' 1926–1997		23 January 1914, Brussels Son of Victor, Prince Napoléon and Princess Clémentine of Belgium	Alix de Foresta 16 August 1949 4 children	3 May 1997 Prangins Aged 83
Charles, Prince Napoléon ' 1997–present		19 October 1950, Boulogne-Billancourt Son of Louis, Prince Napoléon and Alix, Princess Napoléon	Princess Béatrice of Bourbon-Two Sicilies 19 December 1978 2 children Jeanne-Françoise Valliccioni 28 September 1996 2 children
Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon ' 1997–present		11 July 1986, Saint-Raphaël, Var Son of Charles, Prince Napoléon and Princess Béatrice of Bourbon-Two Sicilies	Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinneberg 17 October 2019 1 child

Marxism

In Marxist theory, the term 'Bonapartism' was coined to describe the political trajectory of Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon I, who was known as Louis Bonaparte before his coronation as Emperor. Karl Marx was a student of Jacobinism and the French Revolution, as well as a contemporary critic of the Second Republic and Second Empire. He used the term to refer to a situation in which counter-revolutionary military officers seize power from revolutionaries, and use selective reformism to co-opt the radicalism of the masses. In the process, Marx argued, Bonapartists preserve and mask the power of a narrower ruling class. He believed that both Napoleon I and Napoleon III had corrupted revolutions in France in this way. Marx offered this definition of and analysis of Bonapartism in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, written in 1852. In this document, he drew attention to what he calls the phenomenon's repetitive history with one of his most quoted lines, typically condensed aphoristically as: "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."