Description: ŇAll through this Italian campaign Bonaparte acted as if he were the head of the state, not its servantÉ He became a creator and a destroyer of states. Italy was not at that time a united country but was a collection of small, independent states. None of these escaped the transforming touch of the young conqueror. He changed the old aristocratic republic of Genoa into the Ligurian Republic, giving it a constitution similar to that of France. He forced doubtful princes, like the Dukes of Parma and Modena, to submission and heavy payments. He forced the Pope to a similar humiliation, taking some of his states, sparing most of them, and levying heavy exactions. — Hazen, 1917
Source: Charles Downer Hazen, The French Revolution and Napoleon (New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1917) 244
Map Credit: Courtesy the private collection of Roy Winkelman |
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