Quand Napoléon inventait la France ("When Napoleon invented France"): Dictionary of administrative institutions and of the court during the Consulate and Empire

“Prefects, Council of State, Legion of Honour, Garde champêtres, Public Treasury, National Stud (Dépôt d'étalons), Palmes académiques (Academic palms), Grand Maréchal du Palais… Napoleon modernised some institutions and administrative structures and created other from scratch, changing the face of the country and paving the way for modern France.”

Whilst there are many dictionaries on the Empire, this is the first which is exclusively dedicated to the institutions of the Napoleonic empire and also the first to describe in detail the political and administrative bodies of the court.

The dictionary (with its entries written by Pierre Branda, Pierre-François Pinaud and Clémence Zacharie and coordinated by Thierry Lentz) comprises 800 accessible and straight-forward articles designed to help historians and those interested in the period understand the institutions which formed the bedrock of Napoleonic power. The entries are constructed around three fundamental questions: Why was the structure created? What was its role? How was it organised? The appendices contain nine constitutional texts, maps and tables.”
 
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Thierry Lentz was awarded the 1997 Fondation Napoléon history prize for a work on the First Empire.
 
Pierre Branda was awarded the Fondation Napoléon History Prize Grand Prix for 2007.