shopkeepers

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One of Napoleon's most famous remarks for the English-speaking world is 'England is a nation of shopkeepers', ('L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers'). Whilst Bourrienne, Napoleon's faithful secretary from 1795 to 1802, gives a version of it in his Mémoires (vol. 1, (Paris: Ladvocat, 1831) p. 274 – “Angleterre…a people which he [Napoleon] so disdainfully used to call a nation of shop-keepers ('peuple boutiquier') which hates us”, it does not appear in the standard compilations of Napolenoic quotes. The only quotations which have at least documentary backup are those which appear either in the Correspondance of Napoleon or in the Memorial de Sainte-Hélène by Las Cases. A screensaver of authentic quotations (in French) can be downloaded here on the site.
Other 'spurious' Napoleon quotations include:
'A picture is worth a thousand words'
'An army marches on its stomach'.

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