This book examines the transformation of the French military profession during the momentous period that saw the death of royal absolutism, the rise and fall of successive revolutionary regimes, the consolidation of Napoleonic rule and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after the Empire's final collapse. Crossing traditional chronological boundaries, it brings together periods in French history that are usually treated separately and challenges established views of change and continuity during the Age of Revolution. Based on a wealth of archival sources, this book is as much a social history of ideas like equality, talent, and merit as a military history.

Reviews

'This is the most convincing study of the shifting ideas of meritocracy in the officer corps of the French army in this period, straddling contrasting political regimes from the Bourbon monarchy, through the Revolution and Empire, to the Restoration. Rafe Blaufarb illuminates the reforms of the Revolutionary period by framing them in their wider context.'

Professor Alan Forrest, University of York

'Blaufarb's book is a study with wider implications, providing keen insights into the evolution of ideals from the last years of the Old Regime through the Napoleonic era.'
Michael P. Fitzsimmons, Auburn University Montgomery, The Journal of Modern History Vol 77, No 2, June 2005

Introduction
1 The merits of birth: lineage and professionalism in the Old Regime
2 The meanings of merit in 1789
3 The death and rebirth of the officer corps, 1789-92
4 Republican meritocracy in the nexus of war, civil strife, and factionalism
5 The politics of professionalism during Thermidor and the Directory, 1794-9
6 Napoleon's improbable synthesis: monarchy and meritocracy in the reconstruction of the officer corps, 1799-1815
Conclusion
Index