At this moment, the pressure the Austrian Empire placed on Napoleon III was overwhelming. Beyond Austria's sheer strength, there was also a vast net known as the "New Vienna System."
The New Vienna System could be said to leave France no way out at all. The first to bear the brunt were the two cancers within France itself: Orléans and Bourbon.
Louis Philippe in particular—he was clearly old enough to be in the grave, yet here he was, still hopping about full of life every day.
One day, he proclaimed himself a German duke, while also claiming to be France's legitimate ruler. If he became King of France, he would lead France into the great German family.
The next day, he would run for King of Spain, declaring himself the king best suited to the Spanish people and willing to compete fairly with the other royal houses.
The day after that, he would go to Rome to replace the Pope, claiming that he had long wished to cast everything aside and serve God.
Besides stirring up trouble everywhere, Louis Philippe often spread rumors portraying the House of Bonaparte as less than human.
From the Agricultural Bank in the beginning, to railway construction, to the recent Paris redevelopment project—from people's livelihoods to military supplies—he even spared neither the plunge in Lyon silk prices nor the rise in sugar prices.
In Louis Philippe's mouth, the Agricultural Bank established by Louis-Napoleon was usury disguised as relief, created solely to cling to farmers and suck their blood.
As for Louis-Napoleon's railway construction, it was even more nakedly a transaction of power for money. If anyone doubted it, they only needed to see whether railway operating rights had gone exclusively to those major companies close to him.
To build the railways, the Bonaparte government had