Return To France
Louis-Napoléon lived in Great Britain until the revolution of February 1848 in France deposed Louis-Philippe and established a Republic. He was now free to return to France, which he immediately did. The provisional government, however, judged him an unnecessary distraction and requested his departure. Back in England, he volunteered to be a special constable in the event of Chartist rioting. In the same month, April, he ran for, and won a seat in the Constituent Assembly elected to draft a new constitution. He did not make a great contribution and, as a mediocre public orator, failed to impress his fellow members. Some even thought that, having lived outside of France almost all his life, he spoke French with a slight German accent. His temporary exile in 1848 proved to be a blessing in disguise for the December presidential election, as it meant he played no part in the June Days, and was able to enhance his image as "all things to all men" against his main opponent, Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, who had led the repression against the working-class of Paris.
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“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)