The French army of Louis XV 1740-1763

Lucien Mouillard’s 1882 masterpiece Les Régiments sous Louis XV. Constitution de tous les corps de troupe à la solde de la France pendant les guerres de Succession, de l’Empire et de Sept Ans is the foundational work for understanding the organisation, flags and uniforms of the French army under Louis XV, yet it has remained inaccessible to non-Francophone scholars for almost a century and a half. The first English edition therefore opens, for military historians, uniformologists and wargamers alike, a primary reference that has until now circulated only through rare original copies and second hand syntheses. Mouillard’s study systematically reconstructs every corps in French pay during the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War and related conflicts, covering infantry, artillery, militia, French and foreign cavalry, and the Maison du Roi. The work is organised into four parts: general principles of organisation; infantry, artillery and militias; French and foreign cavalry; and finally the royal household troops, providing a coherent architecture to a notoriously complex subject.