Les Paysans de Napoléon: aspects de la vie quotidienne et des mentalités (in French)

Eighty percent of the Napoleonic Empire was rural, and yet the history of this huge slice of the population is little known, overshadowed as it is by the great deeds and more famous battles of the period. Generally clumped together into a large non-descript mass of peasants and countryside, the rural history of the Empire proves in actual fact to be far more diverse and complex than initially believed. This is largely thanks to the author's close and attentive study of the contemporary sources still available to us. Daily habits, personalities and sentiments all emerge from the source material to give the reader a detailed understanding of both the geographical and the psychological environment in which the protagonists lived. This book proposes to answer the question, “What was life like in the countryside under Napoleon?”. Using enlightening anecdotes and personal accounts, the joys, hardships, hopes and fears of our ancestors are laid out before us in detail.
 
About the author: Chantal Prévot holds a Masters in Archaeology as well as degrees in Library Science, and is currently the librarian at the Fondation Napoléon. Specialist in daily life during the Empire, she has contributed to a number of books on the subject and regularly writes articles on the subject.
 
Click here for Irène Delage's interview with Chantal.