Napoleon III, with near-dictatorial powers, makes building a good railway system a high priority.

He consolidates three dozen small, incomplete lines into six major companies using Paris as a hub.

Paris grows dramatically in terms of population, industry, finance, commercial activity, and tourism. Working with Georges-Eugène Haussmann from 1853, Napoleon III spends lavishly to rebuild the city into a world-class showpiece.

The financial soundness for all six companies is solidified by government guarantees.

Although France had started late, by 1870 it will have an excellent railway system, supported as well by good roads, canals and ports.

Napoleon, in order to restore the prestige of the Empire before the newly awakened hostility of public opinion, tries to gain the support from the Left that he had lost from the Right.

After the return from Italy, the general amnesty of August 16, 1859, marks the evolution of the absolutist or authoritarian empire towards the liberal, and later parliamentary empire, which will last for ten years.