The Difficult Reform of Military Discipline in the Latter Half of Eighteenth-Century France 1

In the discourse which developed in the second half of the 18th century in France concerning the reform of military discipline, it was above all the term “reform” itself which proved to be the bone of contention. Carried out within the French army, the debate can be summed up in the following dilemma: while the experts and general opinion agreed that a thorough reform of the military had become an absolute necessity, the effect the implementation of these reforms would have on the essence of the military system was feared. It would be a true “revolution”. In this context, the passions stirred with regard to the reform of French military discipline offers us a perfect example of the “threat” apparent in such a renewal in the eyes of some in the military who were guarantors of the privileges of a particular old aristocracy at the end of the Ancien Régime. This chapter traces the evolution of the connotations of the term “discipline” in both military circles and the general public of that period by studying the social and political issues involved in this debate, not only in the army but also in the society of the Ancien Régime at large.