Soldier and peasant in French popular culture, 1766-1870

David M. Hopkin

"Revolutionary France bequeathed to the modern world the concept of the 'nation-in-arms', a potent brew of nationalism, militarism and republicanism embodied in the figure of the conscript. But it was not a concept shared by those most affected by conscription, the peasantry." "In the popular culture of rural France the soldier was not considered as the representative of the nation but rather of a different way of life. At best soldiers were 'prodigal sons', who spent their lives in debauchery; at worst they belonged to a separate race which had more in common with the nobility than the laborious peasant. These views originated in the ancien regime, but they still found utterance after the Franco-Prussian war." "Concentrating on the militarised borderlands of eastern France, this book examines the disjuncture between the patriotic expectations of elites and the sentiments expressed...