This paper examines changing interpretations of the French Revolution and its legacy within French military circles during the French Third Republic (1870-1940). Using multiple contexts to ground its conclusions and drawing on the insights of Robert Gildea and Pierre Nora on the significance of history and memory in the creation of modern French political culture, this paper argues that French officers’ shifting discussions about the French Revolutions legacy reveal important elements of the French army’s political culture and its evolving relationship with the nation-as-republic. In the period before the First World War, many French officers employed Revolutionary history, its history and memory, to craft an army that, in their perception, was modern, effective and cohesive. A common source of inspiration for both military and civilian servants of the Republican nation, French Revolutionary history thus created stability in civil-military relations, in spite of various crises such as the Dreyfus Affair. This stability was undermined during and after the First World War. One of the key points of dispute during the interwar years (1919-39) became the legacy of the French Revolution. Whereas earlier, many military commentators has referenced the Revolution in their commentary, in the interwar period, military analysts began to criticize the Revolutionary heritage and used history as a tool to criticize the Republican order. They considered the French Revolution’s political legacy to be especially dangerous in an era of Communist Revolution. In response to the expanded powers of the Republican State, many military commentators now called for a separation between the nation and the army. By examining the army’s reflections on France’s Revolutionary past, this paper provides some insights into the changing political culture of la grande muette, the usually inscrutable and silent sword arm of the Republic.