The Imperial Restoration
On September the 5th, 1937 Louis Napoleon was crowned His Imperial Highness Napoleon the Fourth, By the Grace of God and the will of the Nation, Emperor of the French in the Notre Dame D'Afrique Cathedral. In the ceremony, Marshal Pétain personally handed the newly forged Imperial Crown (designed to resemble that of Napoleon III) to Napoleon IV who then crowned himself. This formally symbolised the transition of power from the military and the Fourth Republic to the new emperor. The Fourth Republic was dead, long live the Third French Empire!
The only flaw in the ceremony was the absence of the newly promoted Lieutenant General Delestraint and his Liberian veterans who had been intended to provide the honour guard for the ceremony. However, they were delayed by sand storms in the Sahara and the ceremony proceeded without them. Instead, it was decided that they would take part in a special ceremony where the Emperor would personally award medals to the heroes of Liberia and where they would become the first regiments to swap their standards for the new Imperial Standard.
The new Imperial Standard was an exact copy of that of Napoleon III
The first decision for the emperor was the form the restored empire would take. Napoleon IV's decision was to return the nation to the form of the Liberal Empire era of Napoleon III. This would mean a democratically elected National Assembly once every six years with the power to petition the Emperor and the government which would be appointed by the Emperor himself. It also meant the establishment of a senate of 150 members, personally appointed by the Emperor with the power to amend laws and the constitution with a two thirds majority.
The final element of the changes to the constitutional situation in the Third French Empire was the formal and complete reintroduction of the
Code Napoléon, including freedom of the press and of religion, and the formalisation of these changes in the 'Constitution of the Third Empire'.
In reality however, the Emperor had full autocratic power. The veneer of democracy and constitutionalism was just that - a veneer. Through the power of patronage in the Senate and through the lack of power of the National Assembly, Napoleon IV would be able to change the laws and the constitution any time he liked.
The next decision for the Napoleon IV would be who would be the Prime Minister to head the new imperial government. The candidates were, respectively, the current Prime Minister in reward for his loyal service in restoring the monarchy, the young, independent De Gaulle who was dedicated to the liberation of metropolitan France and Admiral Darlan who was committed to building the defences of the empire against the Communard threat.
In the end, the choice was obvious. Napoleon IV was 23 years old and determined to fully restore the empire of Napoleon III. De Gaulle, aged 47, may well have reminded the Emperor of his father and it is certain that the two men's goals were highly similar. Napoleon IV was grateful to Maurras but did not view him as having the fire necessary to regain France and similarly respected Darlan's war hero status but disdained what he saw as his cautious timidity.
In a private meeting following his coronation, Napoleon IV and De Gaulle spoke to each other for at least two hours with the outcome being the "Grand Understanding" between the two men - a meeting of minds and an agreement on shared goals that would last for decades.
On September the 5th, the Emperor made public his decision and formally invited De Gaulle to become Prime Minister and form the first government of the Third Empire.
De Gaulle's first act as Prime Minister was to order the promotion of members of the Young Guard faction in the military as part of his schemed to cut back what he saw as the dead wood within the armed forces who had lost the Weltkrieg.
His next act was to seek and receive imperial approval for a massive expansion of the Foreign Legion as the first step to building an army capable of defeating the Commune and returning the exiles to Paris.
Finally, the government commissioned the Dakar shipyards to begin building a fleet of transport ships, firstly as a way to allow the rapid transportation of troops between the north and south of the country by sea, thereby by-passing the Sahara, and secondly to enable the navy and the army to practice amphibious assaults as preparation for the ultimate goal of the invasion and reclamation of metropolitan France.