The fall of Napoléon III's regime was widely regarded as a watershed in French history. ‘A new world is about to begin, another France’, Flaubert repeatedly told friends. The sense that an era had come to an abrupt end was further marked by the disastrous siege of Paris and the bloodshed of the Commune that followed. Those harrowing events inevitably provoked reflections on the period that had gone, and prompted attempts to reappraise the Second Empire.

Over that twenty-year period, much about France had changed almost beyond recognition. As we have seen, its embryonic railway system had developed into a complete network, linking France to its neighbours and bringing immense economic growth. Increasing industrialisation had drawn thousands of workers to cities which swelled to accommodate them, while an expanding Paris underwent its own major transformation under the direction of Haussmann. New industrially-produced fabrics and dyes and cheaper machine-made garments had revolutionised the way people dressed and made fashionable clothes available to a far wider range of the population, with the result that dress fashions themselves changed with ever-increasing speed. Eating habits, too, had undergone change: with famine a thing of the past, a far greater variety of foodstuffs and preparation methods were available, though industrial processing had brought with it new fears of food adulteration. From being the preserve of the few, photography had become available to all, and by creating an unprecedented visual record of people and places, it helped to shape the way the Second Empire would be seen by subsequent generations.