From the turmoil and tragedy of the French Revolution to the rise and fall of the enigmatic figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, the history of France between 1789 and 1815 is one of the most enduringly fascinating - and widely-studied - periods of history. In this volume, the renowned historian William Doyle provides a new perspective on several key themes within the history of this period - from the world of the Ancien Regime to the Battle of Waterloo. He sheds new light on the causes of the French Revolution and the impact of the revolution outside France. In taking a fresh look at the Napoleonic Empire, he considers the influences on Napoleon's leadership decisions and the machinations of his court. Written by one of the leading historians of Revolutionary France, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Europe.
Illustrations
Introduction
Part I: Functions for Sale
1. Colbert and the Sale of Offices
2.Voltaire and Venality: The Ambiguities of an Abuse
3. Secular Simony: The Clergy and the Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-Century France
4. Changing Notions of Public Corruption (c.1770-1850)
Part II: The Old Order Disintegrates
5. The Union with Ireland in a European Context
6. The French Revolution: Possible because Thinkable or Thinkable because Possible?
7. Desacralising Desacralisation
8. The French Revolution and Monarchy
9. The American Revolution and the European Nobility
Part III :Napoleon: An Undemocratic Revolutionary
10. The Napoleonic Nobility Revisited
11. Napoleon, Women and the French Revolution
12. The Political Culture of the French Empire
13. Revolutionary Napoleon
Notes
Index
