ABSTRACT
Revolution in Paris killed enlightened reform in every other European capital, the ancien regime thereby sliding ever deeper into a bottomless pit of reaction that could not but intensify its opposition to political change. Indeed, at the onset of the French Revolutionary Wars, there were even those who believed that war would give an added impetus to reform. To deny that the French Revolution gave pause to the practitioners of enlightened reform would be foolish, and there is no intention of pushing such an agenda. The 'military revolution' of the seventeenth century had been a valuable ally in that it had effectively given the crown a monopoly of armed force while at the same time making the price of military service, which remained the pre-eminent hall-mark of the nobleman, incorporation into an institution that overtly asserted the primacy of the monarch.
