Republic proclaimed after the February 1848 Revolution; Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was elected president in Dec. 1848 and staged a coup in Dec. 1851, ending the republic a year later when he declared himself Emperor Napoleon III.
Ended by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's self-coup (Dec 1851) and formal proclamation of the Second Empire (Dec 2, 1852).
Covers the Second Republic as the opening act of its span; standard reference for 19th-century French social/political history.