“All in all, French armies wrought much suffering in Europe, but they also radically changed the lay of the land.
In much of Europe, gone were feudal relations; the power of
the guilds; the absolutist control of monarchs and princes;
the grip of the clergy on economic, social, and political
power; and the foundation of ancien régime, which treated
different people unequally based on their birth status.
These changes created the type of inclusive economic
institutions that would then allow industrialization to take
root in these places. By the middle of the nineteenth
century, industrialization was rapidly under way in almost all
the places that the French controlled, whereas places such
as Austria-Hungary and Russia, which the French did not
conquer, or Poland and Spain, where French hold was
temporary and limited, were still largely stagnant.”