ABSTRACT
At the dawn of the 20th century over half the people of France still lived in the countryside and two-fifths of her workforce were engaged in farming and forestry. During the course of the peaceful century between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I many aspects of continuity from a more remote past survived in the villages and farms of France. Nonetheless, rural France did experience substantial and sometimes devastating change during those 100 years. Nonetheless, rural France did experience substantial and sometimes devastating change during those 100 years. The chronicle of land use and agricultural production in France from the fall of the First Empire to the eve of World War I is recorded in these vast and impressive surveys, each of which contains information at the department scale. The nature of land use and agricultural activity will be reconstructed at the end of the First Empire and attention.
