The author presents a detailed account of the French Gendarmerie from the old regime up to the First World War, and looks at the reasons for how and why this model came to be exported across continental Europe in the wake of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies. In particular the gendarmes' role is examined within the differing national contexts of Italy, Germany, and the Habsburg Empire.. "This account fully explores how the organisation and style of nineteenth-century soldier-policing developed and how its deployment brought the concept of the state and the state's law to much of continental Europe.