The Empire
Napoleon did not believe that the middle-class National Guard would be able to maintain order and suppress riots. Therefore he created a Municipal Guard of Paris, which was strongly militarized. However, he did not abolish the National Guard, but was content to disarm it. He kept it in reserve and he mobilized it for the defense of French territory in 1809 and 1814. Twenty thousand national guardsmen took part in the Battle of Paris in 1814.
Read more about this topic: National Guard (France)
Famous quotes containing the word empire:
“The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German Empire and the old Apostolic Austrian one. It ... gave votes and seats in Parliament to women.... But if society can be reformed only by the accidental results of horrible catastrophes ... what hope is there for mankind in them? The war was a horror and everybody is the worse for it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation that is governed by shopkeepers.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)