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The Seven Years’ War, characterized by French defeats, marked the beginning in France of a policy of military reform that was sustained until the Revolution. The ministerial measures taken in this context have been the subject of numerous studies. In particular, the role played by the reorganization of the military’s hierarchy and by the renewal of recruitment methods has attracted specific attention. However, this kind of analysis has been recently challenged by a more cultural approach. Using French officers’ writings, historians have stressed the advent of a new conception of the soldier, even speaking of the will to “citizenise” the rank and file. Thus, after the treaty of Paris, a new approach to the soldier seems to compete with the ministerial reforms, no link having been established between these two changes. Indeed, the hypothesis that the renewal of the control exercised over the soldier contributed to the will to “citizenise” him has not received much attention. In this paper, I intend to discuss this dichotomy by showing how the military reforms of the Enlightenment are closely bound to the appearance of a new discourse on the soldier. Ministerial measures, such as officers’ writings, are indeed equally defined by a tension between the search for military effectiveness and the changes in the political status of the soldier this involves. In this way, the roots of the soldier as citizen are to be found at the junction of the institutional reforms and the military thinking of the time.