The Economy at War

Abstract

France never had an industrial revolution. At least, she did not experience an industrial revolution in the British sense of a sudden sharp rise in economic growth and manufacturing output, associated with industrial concentration, widespread factory-building and rapidly accelerating urbanisation. Instead, the rhythm of France’s industrial growth was more gradual and more consistent. It had begun in the mid-eighteenth century, when most industrial activity still took place in the countryside, and it continued at a steady pace throughout the nineteenth century. Not until the 1930s was the number of people engaged in agriculture surpassed by the size of France’s industrial workforce.¹ The period of the Consulate and Empire, although turbulent, was too short to have a profound impact on these long-term trends.