Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew of Napoleon I, he was the last monarch to reign over France. First elected to the presidency of the Second Republic in 1848, he seized power by force in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be reelected; he later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. He founded the Second Empire, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870. He oversaw the modernisation of the French economy and worked to have parts of the centre of Paris rebuilt following Napoleon III style guidelines; except in Paris where republicanism prevailed, he was a generally popular monarch, who used plebiscites to guide his actions. Napoleon III modestly expanded the French overseas empire and made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, engaged in the Crimean War, the Second Italian War of Independence, the Second Franco-Mexican War, as well as the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, in which he served alongside his soldiers during the fight, an uncommon action for a head of state in the modern era.