Bourgeoisie The new middle class of merchants and businessmen is prospering throughout Europe, and especially in Britain, which Napoleon describes as a 'nation of shopkeepers'. But France has its shopkeepers, too, part of a growing bourgeoisie that has grown rich from the abolition of inherited privilege.

Commissaries Officials who organise food and equipment supplies for soldiers. Their powers of requisitioning will give a bad name to the title 'commissary' for ever more.

Corps Among the many reforms that make Napoleon's armies among the most effective the world has ever seen, the creation of the army corps is one of the most important. Self-contained mini-armies, providing for their own transport and provisions and containing their own infantry, cavalry and artillery, they are revolutionising the art of warfare.

Gendarmerie They're not there to give you directions. The new French police force, set up by Napoleon and recruited from the ranks of the army, is there to keep order.

Goddams The name given by the French to British troops, apart from the green-uniformed British riflemen, whom they named 'Grasshoppers'.

Grapeshot Small balls used as charge in a cannon, which scatter when fired. Made famous by Napoleon's 'whiff of grapeshot', when he put down a royalist rising in Paris in 1795 by ordering the republican troops under his command to shoot into the crowd.

Guerrillas From the Spanish for 'little war', the word describes the hit-and-run rebels who fight against the installation of Napoleon's brother Joseph on the throne of Spain in 1808. With help from British forces led by Wellington, they fight the ultimately successful Peninsular War against the French.

Levée-en-masse Conscription, to be avoided at all costs.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité The most famous slogan of the French Revolution may not ring out quite so loudly as it did in the early days of revolutionary fervour, but it still captures the imagination in those parts of Europe that remain under the rule of (often foreign) monarchs.

La Marseillaise France's national anthem and possibly the best marching song ever written. It's worth learning the words for those long days on the road travelling around Europe.

Necessaries Best remembered by every traveller: a soldiers' phrase for the personal kit issued by the army.

Parole The practice whereby surrendering officers are allowed to give their word not to escape in return for various privileges. It has nothing to do with the treatment of your run-of-the-mill prisoner of war, who might count himself lucky to be confined in Dartmoor prison, which has been specially built by the British for French POWs.

Shrapnel An early version of the cluster bomb, Henry Shrapnel's invention – the exploding shell – consists of a shell filled with musket balls and pieces of metal. One of the British army's most ruthless weapons, it is designed to cause maximum injury to troops when it explodes above.

Tricolor The French flag – blue, white and red.

Volksgeist A German Romantic term referring to the 'spirit of a nation'. The Romantics argue that each nation has a different volksgeist, so that the same laws and systems of government should not be applied everywhere. This view stands in opposition to the universalist principles of the French Enlightenment.

Waterloo The battle that finally sealed Napoleon's fate, when he suffered devastating defeat after his return from exile during the Hundred Days. The word 'Waterloo' is entering the lexicon as a description of an utter failure from which there can be no return.

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