AP Euro - Ch.19 French Rev & Napoleon SAQ

“It must never be forgotten that, in so far as their voices can be heard at all, the common people of Europe [under Napoleon’s empire] had different priorities and preoccupations from those of the propertied classes. Theirs had not been ‘the empire of the professionals,’ but of the recruiting sergeant and the canceled Holy Day. Napoleonic rule left very deep scars in the body of Europe, all the more profound for being less tangible than the ideological divisions within the educated, propertied elites. . . . The struggle against Napoleon was one of diversity against standardization, of tradition against innovation, of dynastic loyalty against usurpation. It was a popular struggle. . . about preserving the past, a past in which the ‘nation-state’ had no part.”