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‘It was something new in the imperial era: a people’s war that Napoleon found he could not win, a war that dragged on miserably and drained French manpower and resources.’ p247

‘Other migrants are like blown-open grenades, telling their anguish compulsively to everyone they meet, dispensing their pain like shrapnel so they might one day wake to find their burdens have grown lighter. Luca wonders what it would feel like to blow up like that. But for now he remains undetonated, his horrors sealed tightly inside, his pin fixed snugly in place.’ p199

‘Napoleon had already learned the principal rule of the propagandist: that he should never feel constrained by the truth.’ p106