ABSTRACT
From 20 April 1792 to the battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, an entire generation of French men and women was to know nothing but war, or the threat of war. This single, salient fact was to condition the political, economic, social and cultural life of France throughout the 1790s and 1800s. In this chapter we shall examine the major political and ideological issues of the period, emphasising the inter-relationship between the survival of the Revolution, confronted by powerful internal and external enemies, and the increasing authority of the ‘nationalised’ and centralised French state.
