ABSTRACT
National Guard mobilizations were especially common in regions of northern and western France, where the 'Party of Order' subsequently triumphed in the elections of May 1849. Popular participation in the mobilizations came instead from small towns and bourgs where artisans resented the competition of urban factory workers or where wealthy landowners commanded the allegiance of local communities. A different pattern of political mobilization existed at the end of the Second Republic, when Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat of 2 December 1851 precipitated armed revolts in the provinces, involving over 70,000 men. Communal mobilizations also expressed the collective identity of rural populations, based on shared symbols of authority and traditional forms of action. The 'proto-urban' communities exercised some of the secondary and tertiary functions which characterize modern cities, while retaining close ties to agriculture and peasant society. Proto-urbanization involved the multiplication of rural markets, especially in regions where peasants resided in small, dispersed settlements.
