Children and War: A Historical Anthology

15. “These Unfortunate Children”: Sons and Daughters of the Regiment in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France

Chapter Fifteen “These Unfortunate Children” Sons and Daughters of the Regiment in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France Thomas Cardoza Children had long been a part of European armies when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. During the Thirty Years’ War, the Spanish Army of Flanders was followed by “sutlers, lackeys, women, children, and a rabble which numbered far more than itself.” A century and a half later, little had changed. A Hessian captain in 1812 wrote that “the army was also impeded by a vast clutter of sutler wagons, camp followers, vivandières, and their children.” In neighboring Prussia, “boys receive pay only when they are old enough to bear arms. The sons of foreign soldiers are born soldiers and obliged to serve all their lives.” The British army also had large numbers of wives and children following it. Meanwhile, in Austria, Maria Theresa set up special schools to educate soldiers’ sons, removing them from regimental life and turning them into “some of the finest soldiers in the regiment.”1 While virtually all armies included children in their train, their presence for the most part was unofficial and incidental to their parents’ service. However, starting in 1786, the French army developed a unique system in which male children were officially incorporated into their parents’ regiments as enfants de troupe. Female children remained an integral but unof- ficial part of the French regimental family, but boys could begin active service as young as two years old. Like other European armies, the French army had long included children . However, by 1766 there was interest in regularizing these children’s 205 positions, with an eye toward improving the children’s welfare as well as tapping a potentially valuable manpower pool. In essence: the idea of raising children for the army seemed like a panacea to certain people in France at the end of the 18th century, permitting the army to resolve all at once the problems posed by its needs, by the repugnance toward military service in certain provinces, and finally the problem of public assistance. The monarchy took tentative steps in 1766, and again in 1786 and 1788, to provide army pay and rations for soldiers’ sons as “enfants de troupes.”2 The Revolution of 1789, however, swept away the royal army, leaving enfant de troupe regulations in limbo. The wars that France engaged in from 1792 to 1815, however, placed a heavy strain on French manpower, resulting in increased use of children, and their universal incorporation into the French military. There were two practical reasons for treating soldiers’ sons as soldiers and providing them with pay, rations, and uniforms. The first was political. With battle losses mounting dramatically, and with the army’s increasing importance as a political tool, the government needed to show its defenders that it appreciated and rewarded their efforts, and taking material care of their children or orphans was a good start. The second reason was military: enfants de troupe existed with their parents’ regiments whether officially or not, and represented a manpower pool that could be trained and shaped almost from birth. Given the army’s insatiable needs for musicians (drummers and buglers ) and skilled craftsmen (farriers, gunsmiths, cobblers, etc.), these children represented a valuable resource. Living with the regiment, they could be fully trained and expert in their jobs before the age of sixteen. Minister of War Bartholomé Schérér summed up both motivations when he wrote that: we must come to the aid of these unfortunate children who, some through the loss of their fathers, some through their poverty, are dear to the government , and who, by its care and the examples of their fathers, will become virtuous citizens, [and] intrepid and generous soldiers.3 Schérér’s ideas came to fruition with the law of 7 Thermidor, Year VIII (1800). It divided enfants de troupe into two classes: The first class received one-half a soldier’s pay plus clothing and lodging. The second class received two-thirds pay, clothing, lodging, bread, and firewood. Each company was allowed two enfants de troupe, drawn from boys aged two or older who were the product of “the legitimate marriage of a woman attached to the unit as 206 t h o m a s c a r d o z a a blanchisseuse or vivandière, with a defender of the Nation currently in service or died of...