Conscription, community and counter-revolution, the Aveyron : 1780-1820

Abstract

This thesis investigates the part of conscription in resistance to the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire, in a rural environment in south-central France. Of necessity it also examines local economic, religious and cultural life, local traditions of rebelliousness prior to the Revolution, sources of resistance generally and the inter-relationship between popular resistance and organised counter-revolution. Methods: This thesis is heavily influenced by quantitative analysis which has been applied to a range of questions to measure the behaviour of Aveyronnais as regards the state. The largest quantitative exercise was the compilation of a dataset including every instance of collective violence found in various archives. This provides the basis for the discussion of resistance to the Revolution and has been analysed in a number of different ways to focus on themes in violent behaviour, the chronological intensity of collective violence and the intersections between motors of contention. Also notable are the analyses of crime and rebellion in the ancien regime, volunteering in 1791-92, compliance with and resistance to the successive levies of 1793 and desertion and compliance with conscription under the Consulate, Empire and Restored monarchy. All of these have been approached from a quantitative angle to add to an interpretation based on rural culture, influenced by historians, sociologists, linguists, philosophers and anthropologists, mainly working on France but also influenced by the Subaltern School of South Asia and J. C. Scott. The blending of these two distinct approaches has proven particularly profitable in permitting at once the relative certainty of statistical evidence and the interpretive and analytic nuance of social-cultural history. Major findings: The principal finding of this research is that both quantitatively and qualitatively, in the most tumultuous and most tranquil moments, resistance to conscription was the single most important source of resistance to the Revolution and Empire in the Aveyron. It has also been found that the level of resistance to conscription bore little relation to religious discontent but rather had a strong correlation to particular landscapes and even communities. This is found to have been a function of landscape, agricultural practices, social structure, landholding patterns and local cultures and traditions in varying degrees. In consequence it is argued that the local incidence of resistance was driven by the struggle to survive in an impoverished and isolated society. It is shown that spiritual survival as well as material, was perceived as essential to the perpetuation of the community, yet the integrity of the family and community, and thus their continued existence was more deeply threatened by conscription than any other Revolutionary innovation. A final finding of this thesis is that rural resistance to the state was rational and carefully calibrated to contest unwarranted intrusions into village life but to avoid the worst consequences of repression and took into account the legally sanctioned punishments in determining the resistance strategies to pursue.