Jean-Baptiste, Count Jourdan was a military commander remembered as the sponsor of conscription during the French Revolutionary regime and as one of Napoleon’s marshals of the empire. After being a soldier in King Louis XVI’s army and serving in the We
It appears that both the power of the magnates and the practices born of the ancient patronage system, combined with extensive military service, had the effect of diminishing the size of this class. During the Merovingian epoch, slavery, inherited from antiquity, was still a viable institution. ...