he crown on Napoleon's head, Napoleon took the crown out of the Pope's hands and crowned himself. Thus showing that he believed that since he embodied the State, the Pope had no legitimate right to crown him for in the new France the state was not subordinate to the Church. Prior to the Revolution, the state was symbolized by the monarch and the loyalty of the people was to ruler not to the state. The Revolution made the government the sovereign of the people. It was to this government the people owed their loyalties. "National interests transcend dynastic and all other interests. Citizens are put in national armies and national schools. National flag and anthem supplant royal ensign and hymn." (Hayes; 573). Napoleon built his Empire based on these concepts. It was his soldiers who ousted the old dynasties throughout Europe and gave rise to both German and Italian nationalism that eventually unified the numerous minor kingdoms, states, and principalities into the respective nations of Germany and Italy. After Brumaire (9-10 Nov. 1799) --the coup d'etat which first set Napoleon on the path to becoming the supreme executive of a French empire-Napoleon declared, "The Revolution is made fast on the principles on which it began; the Revolution is finished." Since this famous utterance came so soon after he gained power, it is clear that Napoleon was saying something significant about what the role of his new-born regime would be to those which had preceded it. Like the man himself, this quote and the one at the head of this page are both highly complex and ambiguous. He is declaring that the new regime was both a break from the immediate past and part of a continuity with that past. What was Napoleon's relationship to the Revolution? To what extent was he its heir or its betrayer? Did he save the Revolution or liquidate it? To begin it is necessary to determine wh
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