The Language Question under Napoleon

This book offers a new perspective on the cultural politics of the Napoleonic Empire by exploring the issue of language within four pivotal institutions - the school, the army, the courtroom and the church. Based on wide-ranging research in archival and published sources, Stewart McCain demonstrates that the Napoleonic State was in reality fractured by disagreements over how best to govern a population characterized by enormous linguistic diversity. Napoleonic officials were not simply cultural imperialists; many acted as culture-brokers, emphasizing their familiarity with the local language to secure employment with the state, and pointing to linguistic and cultural particularism to justify departures from which what others might have considered desirable practice by the regime. This book will be of interest to scholars of the Napoleonic Empire, and of European state-building and nationalisms.

Stewart McCain is Programme Director in History at St Mary's University, Twickenham, UK, and has previously taught European History at the Universities of Winchester, Aston and Oxford. Grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Royal Historical Society have supported his research, which has previously appeared in French History.

1. Introduction: Language, Empire and the New Regime.- 2. Language under the Administrative Gaze - State, Statistics and Social Knowledge under Napoleon.- 3. Language, Local Knowledge and the Napoleonic State.- 4. Language and Education under Napoleon.- 5. Cultures of Language and Military Service under Napoleon.- 6. Language, Law and the Legal Profession: Negotiating Cultural Identity in an Imperial Institution.- 7. Organised Religion, Language and the French State from the Old Regime to Napoleon.- 8. Conclusion.- Bibliography.- Index.