Abstract
The threshold of 1814/1815 in France and Prussia was marked by the return of the traditional monarchy after the experience of the American and French Revolutions. The Crown relied on the armed forces to maintain public order and establish the monopoly of the state. However, the Revolutions had led to the creation of citizen militias that played a crucial role in the independence of the free nation. The present article focuses on the American colonists’ troops, the French National Guard and the Prussian Landwehr and Landsturm in order to investigate how a new form of popular arming emerged during the Sattelzeit, which significantly changed the military institutions of the ancien régime. This study emphasizes the aspect of military discipline and analyses the complex incorporation of popular arming into the state. The concept of loyalty was instructive for the understanding of social relationships within society, and the Revolution deeply changed the commitment of the militiamen. This reveals the conflicting interpretation of the sacrifice that citizens made for the establishment of a free nation. During the Restoration, exclusive obedience to the sovereign still existed, but the attachment to liberal institutions had become an integral part of the identity of the modern citizen-soldier, as the example of German liberals and members of the French National Guard show.
Keywords
Introduction
When monarchy returned to many European countries after Napoleon's defeat in 1814/1815, society, military institutions and political legitimacy had changed significantly. The traditional Crowns in France and Prussia depended on armed militias to establish a monopoly over the state and to force the whole country to accept the control of official authority. 1 At the same time, the armed forces had undergone deep transformations during the fifty years before the Restoration. The American and the French Revolutions had introduced citizen-soldiers into the ranks of revolutionary troops that led to a crucial change in the configuration of obedience and loyalty. A new soldier was not exclusively subject to his sovereign, but by gaining citizenship within the revolutionary nation, he had also become a tributary of the new political order that he was requested to defend.
Against this background, the present study will examine the years spanning 1775 to 1820 in order to analyse the impact of the citizen-soldier on the return of the monarchy after the threshold of 1814/1815. Restoration was not a simple re-establishment of the ancien régime, it was rather a compromise between traditional and liberal tendencies. 2 In Prussia, the French occupation cleared the way for popular arming within the creation of the Landwehr and the Landsturm. 3 After the end of Napoleonic dominion, Frederick William III (1770–1840) had to find a way to integrate the reformed and mobilized military institutions into his monarchical authority. Liberals as well as early nationalists publicly reminded citizens of the sacrifices Prussian people had made to free the country from French oppression when they took up arms and enlisted in the troops the government had set up. In France, when Louis XVIII (1755–1824) returned to Paris in 1814, he called upon the National Guard, founded in 1789, to ensure public order. European militias were therefore mobilized in order to protect national security, emphasizing their crucial role in the exercise of political power. During the American War of Independence (1775–1787), militias fought members of the loyalist movements as well as the British troops, mobilizing large parts of the population to battle against colonial rule. 4
In this respect, the reorganization of the armed forces and the creation of militias within the monarchy posed several questions: How did an institution based on revolutionary troops and the citizen-soldier revive under a monarchic regime that stressed the divine origins of monarchy in order to legitimatize the king's regime? To what extent did the revolutionary heritage, going back to the American militias, limit the reach of monarchical power at the same time? How did public opinion, political theorists and military experts assess the organization of the armed forces and hence accelerate the crisis of traditional rule that had partly lost its political legitimacy? How did militiamen and guardsmen adapt to a state that was founded on traditional rule and, in the Prussian case, refused to adopt a constitution? 5 The organization of popular forces by the king provoked reflections and protest among its members who linked their service to the American and French Revolutions and claimed to preserve the tradition of the modern citizen-soldier.
Using modern militia as a weapon against traditional rule appeared for the first time in North America, then in France and later in Prussia. Militias went hand in hand with the emergence of a new type of citizen-soldier who was different from the professional soldier because he belonged to the local environment and served voluntarily to protect his homeland. The war against Great Britain and for the independence of the United States between 1775 and 1787 demonstrated the decisive role armed colonists played in creating the constitution because they were soon linked to the struggle of the American people for freedom and prosperity. During the French Revolution, civil troops, similarly to the American colonists, helped to abolish the ancien régime. The delegates of the National Assembly, while debating the new constitution, were confronted with the same problem as the United States Founding Fathers: the new political order was born out of an upheaval, thus how could the revolutionary movement possibly come to an end and the authority of the government be preserved? The problem persisted during the Restoration in France and in the German states where debate among liberals and conservatives focused on how the militia could be incorporated into the state and how discipline among the soldiers would be ensured.
Research by Matthew C. Ward on the United States militia system and Mathilde Larrère on the French National Guard provide a fascinating insight into popular arming. 6 Both succeed in stressing the organization of popular arming within the state at the end of the eighteenth century and in the first half of the nineteenth century and in analysing the behaviour of the militiamen themselves, hence offering an insight from the bottom up. However, many studies lack development of a transnational perspective on military institutions; they often consider the creation of bourgeois militias as a single phenomenon that occurred with the outbreak of Revolution. 7 An institutional approach is often prioritized, which hides the global impact of citizen militias, their American origin and European reception, as well as their effect on the exercise of power at the beginning of the Restoration. Yet, the comparison between American and European societies emphasizes the transfer of ideas and concepts and allows us to understand the influence on collective consciousness and memory. The circulation of experience led to rising expectations of political and social equality, and increased participation within the institutions of the revolutionary nation.
This article argues that the American and French Revolutions led to a specific contemporary experience of violence and armed public service as well as a new form of military discipline and loyalty. Of course, popular arming existed before the revolutionary upheavals on both continents, when provincial troops had been mobilized to protect the Crown and the absolutist monarchy. 8 However, popular arming during the Revolutions changed the traditional commitment significantly. 9 State authorities observed that in order to ensure discipline and to call upon fellow citizens for the defence of the country, the regime needed to develop a new legitimization of its own rule and to offer the prospect of political participation within the nation. In this regard, Revolution was an experience of violence and conflict shared by a growing number of American, French and German civilians who looked for individual freedom and political rights. As a result, the French constitution of 1791 established the citoyen actif, who quickly came to personify the modern citizen of the nineteenth century because he was granted the right to vote for members of parliament and to serve in the National Guard at the same time. 10 The latter became a central force within the maintenance of public order and security, setting a concrete example of ‘popular policing’. 11
The present study defines experience less as a historical fact speaking for itself, but rather as a process by which subjectivity is constructed. 12 Its emphasis is on the fact that citizens, during Revolution, took up arms in order to defend the new political order because they had already been enrolled in provincial militias beforehand. 13 The ancien régime's institution led to the dissemination of military practices, the use of weapons as well as tactical knowledge of combat. 14 In this respect, the traditional Crown accelerated the democratization of military service, which played a crucial role in popular arming and permitted the organisation of troops for the defence of the revolutionary nation. Political and military theorists then linked popular arming to the aspect of social and political emancipation and affirmed that the engagement of armed citizens was to overcome the ancien régime. In this respect, experience was also an act of interpretation, undertaken by members of the ascendant bourgeoisie in order to grasp and understand their own present. 15 At the same time, the American War of Independence and the French Revolution set an example of how to institutionalize the militia within the modern nation, thus creating a proper revolutionary experience.
The study focuses on official discourses and published reflections dealing with the significance of popular arming for social and political emancipation. When members of the American militias took up arms in 1775 in order to protect the colonies’ autonomy, public actors interpreted popular arming as a political movement that the new constitution of the United States should perpetuate. Yet, the interpretation of Revolution belongs to the history of ideas. The aim is to complete the investigation of the impact of popular arming by providing an insight into the militia itself and by emphasizing the transfer of political theories and ideas among the local bourgeoisie. This study therefore proposes a case study of the French National Guard in the cities of Paris and Rennes during the Restoration in order to highlight how official and liberal discourses led to the expectations of a constitutional order and the preservation of the armed bourgeoisie. The first section compares the emergence of popular arming to its further institutionalization in America and France in order to emphasize the transfer of revolutionary experience. The following section focuses on the Restoration in Prussia and France, where the return of traditional monarchy led liberals and conservatives to reconsider the role of the armed forces within the state. The analysis of the Parisian and Rennais National Guard allows for an investigation of the impact of political narratives on collective behaviour. The conclusion presents a summary of the most important results from this study.
The Rise of Provincial Militias during the Revolution
The militia system in America did not emerge during the Revolution but had existed since the colonization of the continent. Regular British troops were often limited in number and employed in European conflicts. Consequently, until the war with the British army, public order and defence of the western border depended on armed colonists’ units. 16 In theory, every man of military serving age was requested for the militia and had to furnish his own personal weapon. At the same time, when tensions with Great Britain increased, the British standing army was more and more identified with a distant government that did not care about the interests of the American colonies. The Boston massacre of 3 March 1770 demonstrated the authoritarian and draconian role played by the British administration and became proof of the military dictatorship exercised on behalf of the British Crown. 17
In 1774, the American colonies used the experience of the Indian Wars to set up troops that were able to resist the British army. The First Continental Congress adopted a resolution to create a provincial army that was composed of 47 regiments and 14,000 men. 18 Companies elected their officers and chose volunteers for special units, the so-called minutemen. The battles of Lexington and Concord (19 April 1775), in which the New England militia defeated the British troops, was proof of their effectiveness. 19 Even though their tactical value turned out to be more than doubtful during the war, the militias served the leaders of the patriots as an argument to claim freedom from foreign rule. In this respect, Lexington and Concord demonstrated how the Americans defended their autonomy. Thomas Paine, author of the famous 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, denounced the oppression exerted by the British troops. He opposed the aggression committed by the British army with the determination of the American people to fight a defensive war and to protect its properties, liberty and religious freedom. 20
In this context, the armed colonists’ fight was crucial for United States nation-building. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 stressed the oppressive power exerted by the British troops to justify the resistance of the American people. 21 The militias, in contrast, represented a type of armed force that was different from regular troops, characterized by a strong and blind obedience to military hierarchy. Militias belonged to the community, their members were incorporated into local companies, their discipline rooted in loyalty and commitment to the homeland. 22 Their independent character was further crystallized in the image of the minutemen, who were always ready to leave their professional occupation and join the ranks of their company at any time. 23 The difference from the regular forces of the British Crown was even more striking since the militiamen did not wear uniforms and therefore blurred the boundaries between civilians and the military. 24 In this regard, the existence of paramilitary units served to promote a special consciousness of American identity. Popular arming was linked to certain individual rights that, in the opinion of the American patriots, should be part of the future American citizenship.
For the Founding Fathers, the role that the armed colonists played in the conflict with the British army was an important challenge. Since the militias represented the United States’ struggle for independence, they were decisive in the drafting of the Constitution. In 1777, the State of Vermont declared that ‘all men have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety’. 25 Since this declaration, the right to defend one's own interests became an important characteristic of the American citizen. 26 Moreover, it was linked to the prerogative to bear weapons and to participate in parliamentary elections. 27
After this, the debates began. Conservatives tried to limit the impact of the Revolution, to restrict militias and to subject the armed citizenry to strong discipline. The conservative majority of the Virginia Convention of 1788 adopted a draft developed by George Mason, who stipulated that a ‘well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State’. 28 Mason stressed the need to control popular arming. Radicals like Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, criticized the organization of the militias within the military institutions of the state. For Jefferson, the right to weapons should be granted to every single male citizen, who, at the same time, should be granted the right to vote in parliament. 29 The Virginia Convention, however, limited electorate participation to landowners, which showed how most of the delegates, who themselves belonged to the wealthy classes of society, tried to find a way to transform the militias into a reliable armed force and to maintain the privileges of their own social group.
What underpinned the drafting of the Constitution was the crucial question of how to institutionalize what had been originally a revolutionary upheaval. The delegates of the United Constitutional Convention of 1787 asked whether the American citizenship should be directly linked to service in the militia and whether male citizens should be armed permanently. The argument of the individual right to arms shifted into the camp of the anti-federalists, which underlines how the debate of popular arming also provoked the formation of political groups. 30 The adversaries of a reinforced national unification, that put into question the states’ autonomy, used the organization of the militias during the conflict with the British army as an argument to contest the federalists’ proposal to reserve the prerogative of military recruitment to the national government. 31 One of the anti-federalists’ leading figures, the former colonel of the Westmoreland Militia, Richard Henry Lee, felt that individual liberty was at stake because many delegates of the Convention demanded the creation of a professional army and the subordination of provincial militias to a unique high command. The outcome of the Convention finally led to the adoption of the Second Amendment guaranteeing the personal right to keep and bear weapons. 32 At the same time, the states retained full control over the militias. 33
The example of the debates during the Constitutional Convention shows that many contemporaries feared the government of the United States would monopolize control over the armed forces and completely dissolve the militia that had fought for the independence of the country. A system organized on behalf of a central government to improve the troops’ discipline conflicted with the tradition of the American settlers and the minutemen who had protected the first colonies. Moreover, this system reminded many of the British army that men like Lee had fought to gain autonomy and political freedom from during the war. 34
The Reception of Popular Arming during the French Revolution
In Europe, the role popular arming played during the drafting of the United States Constitution was observed by a liberal and enlightened public. It sharpened contemporary theories of public defence and military organization. In 1782, the Parisian lawyer Hilliard d’Auberteuil published a history of the ‘Anglo-Americans’ in which he translated the Maryland Constitution of 1777. 35 Hilliard explained that the Convention of this state considered the militias on the one hand as ‘la défense convenable et naturelle d’un gouvernement libre’, but saw, on the other hand, standing armies as a serious danger to liberty. 36 The historical overview d’Auberteuil offered his readers put the stress on the institutionalization of militias and illustrated how d’Auberteuil was concerned about the legal organization of popular arming and revolutionary upheaval that – in Hilliard's opinion – had been successfully realized in the United States Constitution.
The European reception of the militias’ institutionalization showed how experience of war and resistance circulated between American and French societies and was put into practice during the French Revolution. It enabled the French patriots to control the revolutionary upheaval and to organize elections for the Constitutional Convention. Among them was General Lafayette, who had played an important role during the American War of Independence. When the ancien régime was abolished in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille, the Parisian bourgeoisie took up arms to defend public order and to occupy public space in the city, which was coveted by the royalist troops. 37 In a similar way to the American colonists, the Parisian militia monopolized the right to bear weapons and defended the revolutionary achievements against the Crown. The permanent committee of the town nominated Lafayette as chief commander of the city. 38 Lafayette succeeded in transforming the troops under his command into a reliable and well-disciplined force that quickly restored public order. This was a lesson that the general had learned from his engagement in the American Continental Army when he had been entrusted with the chief command of the Virginia army. 39 To improve the combativity of the settlers’ troops, Lafayette had increased tactical training and provided uniforms, ensuring a military organization of the militias. 40 During the French Revolution, Lafayette organized popular arming the same way. He built up local companies that adopted a tricoloured uniform and elected their officers. 41
The role he played in America and France enabled Lafayette to gain enormous fame. For the moderate patriots he soon became the héros des deux mondes, who successfully drew on his American experience to ensure the establishment of the new regime. 42 Lafayette was aware that the outcome of the French Revolution would be decisive for the future of popular arming as an institution of public order and national defence. During the debates on the American Constitution, he observed that the organization of a general militia was key to national unification and should be central in a society of free citizens. 43 However, similarly to the American Revolution, French patriots were confronted with the necessity to create an obedient force to establish the state's monopoly of violence. Military experts in parliament stuck to the idea that a standing army was the best defence of the nation. The bourgeois militias, organized and promoted by Lafayette, played a minor role in the conceptions of the deputies and were seen rather as a reserve that should be mobilized only when necessary and only when the regular forces turned out to be insufficient. 44
The experts’ prudent attitude regarding the militias changed with the increasing threat of a foreign invasion. In February 1790, deputy Alexandre de Lameth demanded the permanent mobilization of bourgeois units to reinforce the frontline troops. 45 In 1791, the militias were officially institutionalized when the Assembly voted for their inscription into the Constitution, where they took the name of the French National Guard. 46 The ranks were open to every male citizen paying direct taxes, the citoyen actif, who, at the same time, held passive suffrage. Because the delegates were reluctant to stipulate the general right to weaponry, they limited arming to the bourgeoisie, a group composed of landowners, prosperous merchants and local notables such as lawyers, doctors and schoolmasters. In the opinion of the deputies, economic and financial independence as well as social reputation were the most reliable guarantees for loyalty and commitment to public order. 47
At the same time, the French Constituent Assembly also addressed the modernization of the standing army and discussed options for reforming the disciplinary and promotion systems within its ranks. Simple soldiers suffered from draconian punishments and the officers’ ranks were reserved for the noblesse. Several laws in 1791 and 1792 were intended to improve the conditions in the standing troops and to make military service more humane and more open to military merit. 48 The prospect of an attack on France driven by the traditional European monarchies following the Declaration of Pillnitz in August 1791 alarmed the French patriots and prompted any measures to mobilize the male population. In this context, members of the Parisian National Guard formed voluntary battalions to support the frontline troops against the Prussian and Austrian armies and fought in the battles of Valmy and Jemappes in November 1792. 49 Their engagement demonstrated how the reorganization of the ancien régime's forces and the institutionalization of the revolutionary militias were simultaneous, leading to a vast military reform and the adoption of the ‘law of amalgamation’, brought before Parliament by the Montagnard deputy Dubois-Crancé in 1793. 50 One year later, the country declared the ‘patrie en danger’, mobilizing some 700,000 men, and, in 1798, the Jourdan-Delbrel law introduced universal (male) conscription.
A Controlled Popular Upheaval? The Prussian Military Reforms
For the Prussian army and its allies, the battle of Valmy demonstrated the superiority of the citizen-soldiers, who, in the words of Goethe, were persuaded to fight a just war and to serve the nation that gave them political freedom. 51 The Prussian government, after 1806, entrusted the generals Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August Neidhardt von Gneisenau to prepare vast military reform. The situation in Prussia in this respect was unique. The reformers considered how to increase the readiness of their fellow citizens to take up arms and fight against French troops. Ulrich Bröckling has shown how the generals broke with the spirit of the old army, where ensuring discipline was based on the control of emotion and feelings. 52 During the French occupation, Gneisenau tried to anticipate a scenario in which the king would call upon his subjects to take part in a general upheaval. 53 The authority had to convince the Prussian citizens to refuse obedience to the Napoleonic high command that enlisted Prussian soldiers in order to reinforce the French troops and to prepare the campaign against Russia. 54
Scharnhorst, president of the Commission of military reorganization, insisted on the necessity of deep military reform in order to organize the resistance against French occupation. 55 In this sense, the irregular warfare conducted by the American militias provided an example of how to combat an imperialist army. 56 Above all, it was the French National Guard and the idea of popular arming that guided the reformers’ approach. In 1807 and again in 1808, Scharnhorst proposed the creation of a bourgeois militia designed to reinforce the standing army that was clearly inspired by the French National Guard. 57 Gneisenau and Scharnhorst believed that a massive mobilization of armed citizens could be effectively ordered and controlled by the authorities – if the king was ready to concede political rights and a constitution. In March 1813, Frederick William called upon his subjects to enlist for the army, the Landwehr and the Landsturm, and opened the way for the realization of the military reform that the generals had desired for several years. 58
The democratization of military knowledge and practices within the provincial militias since the Indian Wars permitted the rapid mobilization of settlers against the British army from 1774 onwards. The struggle against the oppression exerted on behalf of the British Crown was linked to independence and free citizenship. Meanwhile, Congress tried to improve the tactical value of the militias, and the Constitutional Convention of the United States attempted to create a decentralized organization within military institutions. For the French patriots, the American Revolution was an experience that men like Lafayette and the deputies of the National Assembly put into practice to control the armed upheaval in July 1789 and to increase the armed forces at war against Prussia and Austria. The Prussian reformers, in contrast, used the irregular warfare deployed by the militias as a model to reform military institutions and to restore the independence of the Prussian state, provoking the claim of national unity and liberal reforms at the same time.
Popular Arming and Restoration: The End of the Napoleonic Empire and the Reorganization of Bourgeois Militia after the Threshold of 1814/1815
With the end of the Napoleonic reign over Europe and at the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, the military transformations that had marked the period since the Revolution came to an end. 59 In Prussia, the post-Napoleonic order opened the way for a reactionary policy at the outset of the Karlsbader Beschlüsse in 1819. As a result, the Landwehr was limited by a decree on 22 December 1819; the battalions were incorporated into the divisions of the regular army and lost the local autonomy they had received before. 60 Similar measures limited the activity of the Landsturm, which from that point on needed a special request from the central authorities to take up arms and assemble for service. With the Restoration, reflections on the armed forces and theories of how to ensure soldiers’ discipline as well as motivation evolved.
The Experience of Popular Arming and the Claim for Political Reforms within German Public Opinion
Reactions of conservative and liberal theorists showed how the experience of military reforms during the French occupation had led to rising social and political expectations. Popular writers like Ernst Moritz Arndt explained that the battle to overcome Napoleonic dominion had been a common struggle of the German states against French oppression. 61 In the opinion of Arndt, popular arming should lead to the unification of the people. This was an experience that the nationalist writer had learned from the French enemy and the foundation of the National Guard. He praised the organization of the Landsturm and the Landwehr, which he saw as proof that the German people had gained the force to resist the French invaders. 62 In 1816, he claimed that a real Volkskrieg was still necessary to overcome the threat of foreign domination. In return, the Germans would eventually establish a common nation that would eliminate all social differences and abolish the feudalist estates.
Early liberals, in contrast, aimed to show that the creation of provincial militias would permit the creation of the modern and autonomous citizen. Similarly to the American patriots, they rejected the standing army and the military discipline that was based on passive obedience. Ludwig Wieland explained that the purpose of the German Landsturm was to make the standing army unnecessary and to establish what he called the ‘National-Vereinigung’. 63 Wieland claimed the drafting of a constitution and demanded that the composition of the German states should reflect the people's interests and that their governments be elected by the citizens.
Karl von Rotteck, who in his Baden hometown of Freiburg had experienced French occupation and forced recruitments for the Napoleonic army, shared Wieland's point of view. In 1816, Rotteck published a reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of standing armies in comparison to national militias. He stated that standing armies had a destructive impact on civilization. Their only purpose was the waging of wars that would lead to the breakdown of the state's finance, industry and commerce as well as to the decline of science, culture and public morality. 64 In Rotteck's opinion, conscription led to the forced recruitment of all the male subjects of society. The result was that ‘[…] the entire population is to be governed and directed in a military fashion, like a machine, and the state itself is to resemble a military camp or a military training school’. 65 The national militias, however, would be animated by public interest because the ‘Nationalstreiter’ went to war to protect his family and property. 66 The members of the national militias would only recognize the laws of the country that were the expression of the nation's will. Here, the constitution revealed its particular significance for it was the motivation of the armed forces to take up arms. The example of Rotteck demonstrated that, for the early liberals, only the provincial militias were considered to be obedient to the constitution and respected the principles of political freedom. Many claimed that soldiers should take an oath to the constitution to ensure the loyalty of the armed forces and to bind the soldiers to civil society. 67
The Return of the King and the Reorganization of the French National Guard
In France, the experience of bourgeois militias strongly influenced public opinion beyond the return of the traditional monarchies during the Restoration. The French National Guard was a revolutionary institution, created at the downfall of the ancien régime, and integrated into Louis XVIII's government effectively. The case highlighted traditional commitment and obedience as well as the revolutionary experience. In July 1814, Louis XVIII confirmed the existence of the National Guard and connected it with the model of the active citizen by opening the ranks of the militia to direct taxpayers only. 68 The service of the Guard offered Louis XVIII the possibility of gaining acceptance from the French bourgeoisie while the king demonstrated that the Bourbons were disposed to preserve the achievements of the Revolution and to maintain some liberal institutions in the country.
The example of the French National Guard showed how discipline and loyalty to the king could be ensured among armed citizens. Before Louis XVIII arrived in Paris, his brother, the Duke of Artois, had already reached the city in May 1814. The Parisians could observe how the city's guardsmen in their traditional uniforms of 1789 formed the lines for Artois who entered the streets on horseback followed by his servants and ministers. 69 Artois, who also wore the National Guard uniform, strove to prove that the Parisian guardsmen openly accepted the return of the Bourbons who would bring peace to a country that had been at war for almost 25 years. The Bourbons tried to revive the traditional bourgeois service that had existed in France since the ancien régime and the period of the Catholic League. 70 In return, the guardsmen, for the reception of Artois, had been ordered to lay down the revolutionary tricolour cockade and to put on the white one. 71 Parisian guardsmen thus demonstrated their loyalty to the monarchy and to the Bourbon family.
The royal authorities decided to entrust the inhabitants of French towns with maintaining public order at the local level. This showed that the Bourbons could not call upon the regular troops that had served Napoleon, but instead relied exclusively on the National Guard to establish a monopoly over the use of force until the army was reformed after 1818. At the same time, Swiss Guards returned to the King's Court in order to assure the security of the monarch while the French Royal Guard was re-established. 72 Involved in the reaction and white terror against ex-Bonapartists and citizens presumably known for their revolutionary ideology, the Royal Guard's commitment to public order was however questionable. The development and organization of the armed forces not only depended on political decisions, but also took place in the context of a spontaneous reorganization that was a response to the local situation and balance of power.
This was also the case in Rennes, capital of the French province of Brittany located in the far west of the country. Here, there were conflicting memories of the French Revolution and of the origins of the armed bourgeoisie. Louis XVIII, in his decree of 16 July 1814, stressed the loyalty of the guardsmen and defined their service as a duty the bourgeoisie owed to the king. The mayor of Rennes applied the King's decree and organized the levy of two battalions of six each of fusilier, hunter and grenadier companies, with a total strength of 1200 men. 73 The administration appointed a high command whose loyalty to the Bourbons was beyond doubt. The new colonel, Louis-René Duplessis-Grenédan, came from a wealthy aristocratic family and served the king as an officer in the regiment of Penthièvre. 74
At the same time, the regime aimed at reinforcing the loyalty of the officers’ corps and spreading the official representation of the king among the legions of the National Guard. Therefore, it revived traditional forms of monarchical acclamations and particularly the effigy cult, which can be seen as a rite that was intended to create identification with the king and to develop an esprit de corps among the comrades. 75 Additionally, Artois awarded a special decoration, the so-called Décoration du Lys, which stated that guardsmen, who had been selected on behalf of their services, had to take an oath that was a further initiation rite intended to facilitate integration into the Bourbon regime. 76 The content of the oath did not make any allusion to liberal institutions. The guardsmen swore loyalty to the king, but did not swear to the constitution as liberal ministers called for previously. 77
In Rennes, loyalty to the king existed in the companies and among the troops as well. During the Hundred Days in 1815, the local bourgeoisie openly refused to enlist as Napoleonic troops – however without taking up arms to defend the king's authority either. 78 After the downfall of the Empire and during the Second Restoration, guardsmen participated in the destruction of Bonapartist insignia that had been imposed on their companies. In front of the local town hall, a group of guardsmen burned their old standards and flags that were decorated with imperial symbols. 79 Yet, the commitment of the Rennais bourgeoisie to the king had political and economic motives that resulted from the experience of the Revolution and emphasized that the return of the monarchy took place within precise political and social expectations.
The local bourgeoisie hoped for peace, political stability and prosperity. The social composition of the Rennais companies stressed the predominance of skilled craftsmen who constituted an important part of the population. They had an income that enabled a bourgeois lifestyle, including a small piece of land and domestic servants. 80 They demanded an end to Napoleonic taxes, which had been a heavy burden for their commercial activities and thus were abolished with the return of the Bourbons. 81 Moreover, mainly rich landowners and merchants enlisted for the better-organized and well-equipped grenadier elite companies. 82 This group of local bourgeoisie hoped for a political regime that would protect the properties they had accumulated thanks to the acquisition of national goods, the so-called biens nationaux, during the Revolution. 83 Indeed, as Louis XVIII returned to power, he promised a guarantee of property and stipulated within the Charte constitutionnelle that existing properties should remain in the hands of their current owners. 84
However, lack of discipline soon became a problem in Rennes. The military governor of Rennes noticed that many citizens did not take up the service they were requested to. 85 At the same time, the authorities discovered that even those guardsmen who still carried out their duty and took up arms to defend public order, showed signs of disobedience because they regularly participated in debates on the organization of the National Guard as well as on political participation in elections for parliament. Deliberation within the troop and during service had been prohibited by the king. At the same time, the guardsmen in the years that followed Restoration observed how their institution fell victim to wilful neglect by the authorities, who, after the military reforms of 1818, no longer relied on the armed bourgeoisie to ensure public order. Moreover, during the Richelieu ministry of 1820, Parliament adopted a new law that extended suffrage to rich landowners and therefore increased the social inequality of the census. 86
The French Restoration thus entered a reactionary phase, in the same way the German states did at the outset of Carlsbad in 1819. As a result, the government no longer considered popular arming to be a solution for public order, but rather as a threat to the security of the state and thus tried to reduce the arming of the bourgeoisie. The authorities intended to call upon regular forces to ensure public safety. The reactionary change of the regime led to disappointment and protest among the Rennes guardsmen, who saw the confidence they had placed in the return of the monarchy betrayed. In 1817, the government of the moderate minister Lainé had adopted a law that gave passive suffrage to every adult male citizen paying 300 Francs in annual taxes, which supposed an income of 1200 Francs minimum. 87 It enabled half of the Rennais officers, who had an income that did not exceed 1200 Francs, to participate in parliamentary elections. 88 The military reforms as well as the reform of electoral rights were a direct attack on the privileges of the French bourgeoisie.
Commitment to authority and discipline within the troop was a question of bourgeois tradition, which had its roots in the Revolution of 1789 and the consequent social emancipation. Because the local guardsmen observed that the regime did not succeed in preserving the interests of the petite bourgeoisie, they decided to participate in current debates, violating the prohibition of political deliberation. A petition, which the Rennais people addressed to the prefect in October 1820, demonstrated how the local bourgeoisie interfered in the organization of the armed forces and evoked the institutionalization of the National Guard during the Revolution. 89 A group of 400 residents petitioned for a complete reorganization of the Rennais Guard as it had been decreed by the king on 17 July 1816. 90 The petitioners observed that following the Hundred Days, the National Guard had been purged with a significant reduction in levies, therefore excluding most of the Rennais residents. The citizens insisted upon the validity of the 1791 law, which had not been abrogated so far, and they invoked the active citizen and his right to political participation. The revolutionary experience clearly influenced the guardsmen's political opinion, and loyalty to the king's authorities was limited by the bourgeois privileges the regime was supposed to guarantee. As a result, loyalty to the monarchy declined and the integration of the provincial militia within the French state was limited. When the Revolution of 1830 broke out in Paris, the Rennais guardsmen participated in the upheaval and provoked the downfall of the Bourbon administration in their town. 91
After 1814/1815, the revolutionary experience led to expectations of national unity and social equality. For Prussian conservatives the creation of the Landwehr and the Landsturm was proof for the common identity of the German people. Liberals used popular arming as an argument to claim political reforms, referring to the promise of a constitution offered by the government itself. In France, the return of Louis XVIII raised the expectation among the members of the National Guard that the constitutional monarchy would be restored. When the government failed to preserve privileges and political rights according to the 1791 constitution, the integration of the armed bourgeoisie into the reign of the Bourbons became impossible.
Conclusion
This study has emphasized the role traditional military institutions played in popular mobilization during revolutionary upheavals in both America and Europe. The American militia demonstrated on the one hand how colonists used the militia system initially during the ancien régime to defend their interests and to fight British troops. On the other hand, theorists like Thomas Paine defined the militias as a counterweight to the standing army and described them as an expression of freedom and of the independent character of the American people. The delegates of the Constitutional Convention preferred to incorporate the militias into the military institution of the United States, but they faced strong resistance from the anti-federalists who insisted upon the individual right to arming. In this respect, the Second Amendment was a compromise that pointed to the limits of institutionalizing the revolutionary upheaval. Even today, the Amendment suggests that the right to bear arms is a natural right that must not be subject to any legal form of discipline.
The American experience of war and military mobilization influenced the European public. Adherents of the Enlightenment observed that the United States had found a way to reconcile Revolution with the creation of a constitutional order and the establishment of the state's authority. Furthermore, the experience of national defence and public order played a crucial role when Lafayette organized the Parisian militia. For the General, a new political order was only possible by taking into account the existence of the armed citizens who should be part of the political order and gain political freedom. However, French conservatives accepted the soldat-citoyen only reluctantly and by taking into consideration the threat of a foreign invasion. They refused the individual right to weapons and insisted upon the institutionalization of the National Guard that only the citoyen actif could join.
The transfer of revolutionary experience within the Prussian case is even more revealing because it shows how German reformers intended to put into practice forms of military mobilization and popular arming that they had observed during the American and French Revolutions. As a result, the discipline and political commitment of the armed troops changed significantly. To purge the French invaders, the government decided to reform the army and to create militias in a similar way to the United States government. While the Prussian soldiers had always been trained to show passive obedience, the King in 1812 tried to push them to refuse recruitment into the French army. After the downfall of Napoleon, early liberals like Karl von Rotteck requested the dissolution of the standing army and the creation of a citizen militia that should take an oath to the constitution and obey the laws and the government of the free nation. The liberals’ response to the reactionary shift of the Restoration demonstrated that the experience of the Revolution had led to rising expectations. However, the traditional monarchy in Prussia did not intend to take into account hopes and requests for further constitutional and military reform at the outset of the Vienna Congress.
In France, the Revolution of 1789 had provoked a deep transformation of the relationship between the sovereign and his subjects. Loyalty to the king was accompanied by a commitment to the liberal institutions and social privileges that the bourgeoisie had gained in 1791. However, the Bourbon regime after 1814 did not intend to preserve the revolutionary achievements. The disenchantment of the bourgeoisie, who had placed their confidence in the Bourbon monarchy, led to open protest by the Rennais National Guard when its members claimed that the constitution of 1791 should be respected. As a result, the guardsmen lost their motivation for service and played an active role during the overthrow of Charles X in July 1830.
The phenomenon of popular arming and provincial militias during the age of Revolution and the post-Napoleonic era pointed to the reversal of traditional forms of social hierarchy and military obedience. The emergence of the militias at the end of the ancien régime and their reorganization after 1814/1815 demonstrated that exclusive loyalty to the sovereign had come to an end and that commitment to the modern nation had gained an even more important place within the armed bourgeoisie. The citizen-soldier's right to bear weapons and to vote in parliamentary elections emphasized that the creation of the modern nation was rooted in a transnational experience of war and the fight for independence at the same time.
