Napolean III escapes Sedan

If Napolean III personally escapes capture at Sedan is his government still doomed? Will legitimists or republicans still try to depose his government even while he is free and trying to rally new armies either from Lille or in the south?

I am thinking that with Napoleon free in France, but with a competing regime in Paris, the war could go on a lot longer with neither competing French government wishing to be the one that surrenders. Would Napoleon III have fought on?

Any thoughts?

(I am trying to decide whether to write this TL or the 1860s China one I've been thing about).
 
Napoleon III is out, whether or not he escapes at Sedan. France is going to lose this war big time, and NIII was the one person whose decision making started the war - albeit being willing to play in to Bismark's planning. The anti-Communard factions will not rally around NIII for a continuation of the 2nd Empire. If the war is a stalemate or some sort of French victory, then NIII & the empire are preserved, but in modern France military debacles seem to result not just in a change of political leaders but a change of governmental form.
 
NIII was the one person whose decision making started the war - albeit being willing to play in to Bismark's planning.
Personally, Napoleon III didn't want a war. However, under popular pressure, he was unable to prevent it, since he had abandonned the most part of his powers with the Constitution of 1870.

If he had escaped Sedan, I imagine that the army, which had left the parisian mob march upon the Palais Bourbon without opposition after the news of the battle, would open fire in a such TL.
If Napoleon III decide then to pursue war, the Empire would not survive. But I doubt that he would do it. The disaster of Sedan, about 100.000 men lost, had closed any chance to save Bazaine and his 180.000 men trapped in Metz. The morale of the old and ill (a calculus) man that the Emperor was would be surely very affected by such losses. I imagine that he would pressure the government to seek peace, maybe under british mediation.
Even if he loses Alsace-Lorraine, existence of the Empire would not be threatened. If peace is signed soon, before winter, there would be no siege of Paris. No siege of Paris, no Commune, no civil war.
IOTL, despite the defeat of Sedan, Napoleon III kept a popularity in the country. At the time, the republican powerbase was mostly urban centers, while France was still largely rural (explaining the 80% in favour of the Constitution of May 1870, 68% if we take account of abstention).
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
If he had escaped Sedan, I imagine that the army, which had left the parisian mob march upon the Palais Bourbon without opposition after the news of the battle, would open fire in a such TL.

I doubt it. IOTL, there was still one large infantry corps which had not reached Sedan in time to be caught up in the disaster. (I think it was the XII Corps, but I could be mistaken). But the revolutionaries in Paris overthrew the Second Empire and started issuing orders, these troops followed the orders without much or a murmur.

Assuming Napoleon III had escaped Sedan, I still imagine that there would have been a revolution in Paris to overthrow the Second Empire and establish a Republic, and I would guess that the surviving elements of the French Army would obey the orders of the Republic rather than the discredited Emperor.
 
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