everything was overturned with astonishing rapidity: customs, manners,
laws, were superseded

--[The so-called "French" armies of the time, drawn from all parts
of the Empire and from the dependent States, represented the
extraordinary fusion attempted by Napoleon. Thus, at the battle of
Ocana there were at least troops of the following States, viz.
Warsaw, Holland, Baden, Nassau, Hesse-Darmstadt, Frankfort, besides
the Spaniards in Joseph's service. A Spanish division went to
Denmark, the regiment from Isembourg was sent to Naples, while the
Neapolitans crossed to Spain. Even the little Valais had to furnish
a battalion. Blacks from San Domingo served in Naples, while
sixteen nations, like so many chained dogs, advanced into Russia.
Such troops could not have the spirit of a homogeneous army.

Already, in 1808, Metternich had written from Paris to his Court,
"It is no longer the nation that fights: the present war (Spain) is
Napoleon's war; it is not even that of his army." But Napoleon
himself was aware of the danger of the Empire from its own extent.
In the silence of his cabinet his secretary Meneval sometimes heard
him murmur, "L'arc est trop longtemps tendu."]--

by new customs, new manners, and new laws, imposed by force, and forming
a heterogeneous whole, which could not fail to dissolve, as soon as the
influence of the power which had created it should cease to operate.
Such was the state of Italy that I have been informed by an individual
worthy of credit that if the army of Prince Eugene, instead of being
victorious, had been beaten on the Piava, a deeply-organised revolution
would have broken out in Piedmont, and even in the Kingdom of Italy,
where, nevertheless, the majority of the people fully appreciated the