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The Revolutions of 1848 and their Results 501 frustrated the attempt. The number of men now employed on the national works had reached one hundred and seventeen thou- sand, each of whom received two francs a day in return for either useless labor or mere idleness. No serious attempt was made to make the experiment pay, and it was abolished in June. The result was a terrific battle in the streets of Paris for three days, June 23-25, and over ten thousand persons were killed more than had perished in the whole Reign of Terror. 890. Establish- ment of the Sec- ond Empire. This desperate outbreak of the forces of rev- olution resulted in a general convic- tion that a strong hand was essential to the maintenance of peace. The new constitution decreed that the president of the Republic should be chosen by the people at large. Their choice fell upon the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, who had already made two futile attempts to make himself the ruler of France. 1 Before the expiration of his four years' term he resorted, like Napoleon I, to a coup d'etat (December 2, 1851) and set up a new government. He next obtained, by a general vote, the 1 Few monarchs of Europe have had such a romantic career as this nephew of Na- poleon I. An exile, a conspirator against 'Louis Philippe, prisoner of state, escaping, to. return and to be elected president of the Second Republic, he was one of the shrewdest politicians of the nineteenth century. As emperor he gratified French pride with beau- tiful buildings and other showy public works, but the " Napoleonic legend "of glory kept involving him in foreign wars, which mostly turned out badly for France and finally led to his own overthrow ( 923, 942). NAPOLEON III