The regime was bolstered by a huge increase in the police force – tenfold in Paris, with the reforms of 1854. The number of police commissioners was doubled, and the rural gendarmerie, 14,000 strong under Louis-Philippe, was strengthened until it had 25,000 officers all told. The police hounded opponents of the regime and imprisoned those who dared publish attacks on it, sometimes after trials in which the critics could gain valuable publicity, sometimes without any kind of trial at all.
