More hostiltiy between the UK and the 2nd Empire

In some ways it always surprised me that Napoleon III had such good relations with Britain.

I am sure some British folk and an instictive suspicion of him given his family#

Could things have got worse?

Especially could Britain and France have intervened on opposite sides in the ACW, and if so which way round
 
I doubt that it would be possible.
During his reign, Napoleon III had always sought a rapprochement with UK.
This had even forced him to make concessions to the opposition and make France a parliamentarian empire as in 1860 a treaty of Free Trade he signed with UK had cost him his traditionnal powerbase.
EDIT: In his foreign policy, he also sought to not irritate UK.
 
That seems rather hard to do in my opinion... Especially with Victoria being Queen of Great Britain: she became a close friend of Napoleon III and his wife Eugenie. Victoria was also very Francophile: before Napoleon III, she had already tried to ease the relations between France and Britain while Louis Philippe was still in charge. And after the fall of the Second Empire, she still had some sort of love for France: she went to Nice several times in her life.
 

Thande

Donor
As Yorel says, a big part of it was that Napoleon III and Eugenie became friends with Queen Victoria when they were living in exile in London.
 
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