Histoire militaire de la France: Des origines à 1715

This first volume of the series Histoire militaire de la France, which covers more than twelve centuries, is not a history of war - still less of violence - within a space destined, progressively, to become France. Nor is it a simple history of French armies. It is intended to be a general history of France in its military aspect, and thus, in a sense, a history of what we call the French identity. Hence the articulation of the book, with a deliberate emphasis on chronological sequence. Hence also the choice of the advent of Clovis, the first Christian Frankish king, as the starting point. The death of Louis XIV, immediately preceded by an attempt at pacification within the European framework, constitutes the point of arrival, before the period of relative tranquility that characterizes for France the "beautiful" 18th century. Between these two dates, major phenomena occurred, of direct military interest: feudalism, the growing role of money - what Alain Bouchart, at the beginning of the 16th century, called "political blood" (resulting in mercenarism) -, the genesis of the modern state, but also the appearance of artillery fire, with incalculable consequences.