During the Second French Empire, Napoleon III forever changed the face of Paris, when he commissioned Baron Haussmann’s transformation of Paris. However, his ambitious foreign policy also had a subtle influence on urban planning in North America. During the Second French Empire, Napoleon sought to reestablish French influence in North America. France had not held power in the New World since Napoleon I sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States in 1803. One aspect of the Emperor’s plan for expanding France’s sphere of influence involved re-instituting a monarchical form of government in Mexico. In late 1861, with the United States embroiled in a civil war, Napoleon invaded Mexico after its government announced that it would no longer be able to pay its foreign debt. France invasion was initially supported by Mexico’s other major creditors, Britain and Spain, but they withdrew once made aware of Napoleon’s plans to turn Mexico into a French satellite state. By 1863 the French army had taken the capital forcing Mexican President Juarez and his cabinet to flee north where they would maintain a government of exile until after the defeat of monarchist forces in 1867.

Once the French had wrest control of the majority of Mexico, conservatives and other members of the Mexican nobility soon offered the Mexican crown to Austrian grand duke Maximilian Ferdinand. Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico and his wife Empress Carlota arrived in 1864 and took up residence at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City with the understanding that they would continue to be supported by the occupying French troops. The couple’s stay at the castle was brief, the Second Mexican Empire only existed for approximately three years, but during this time Maximilian had the castle remodeled in the neoclassical style that was first made popular in France during the reign of Napoleon I. Mexico’s Emperor even paid homage to the younger Bonaparte with his construction of a straight wide boulevard, modelled after the Champs-Elysees, which stretches from Chapultepec Castle to the National Palace at the centre of Mexico City. Maximilian named it for his Empress (Promenade of the Empress), but when the defeat of his Empire resulted in his death the street was renamed Paseo de la Reforma (Promenade of the Reform War). Today the boulevard is the location of many of Mexico City’s monuments including one which houses the tombs of some of the key figures in Mexico’s War of Independence, as well as, another that houses the remains of heroes of the Mexican Revolution.