History of Modern Europe - Volume II

CERTAIN basic principles in society and in politics were proclaimed by the French Revolution. The Napoleonic Era served to communicate them to Europe. The ensuing period was marked by a bitter struggle within nearly every European state for their general acceptance or for their wholesale rejection. To all Frenchmen liberty, equality, and fraternity already meant definite facts or rights: those who espoused them were inherently revolutionaries—radicals or liberals— while those who repudiated...