Simien, Côme <br/><br/>
Asserting oneself, inside and outside 

 -  2024.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 79 
<br/><br/> This paper aims at clarifying the way in which French rural communities in the 18th century tried to fulfill their goal of managing themselves what they considered their own business. the issue more particularly studied is that of the schools, already quite frequently present at the time in rural areas, and ranking along the main expenses of the collectivity —indeed often being the main expense. The rural inhabitants of these communities managed to turn the school and its schoolmaster into one of the most tangible sign of the presence of an active community, resorting to strategies of inertia, bypassing, and playing « encompassing power » (intendants, bishops, lords) against each other. While hoping to build an « instructor State « in charge of educating future citizens, the French Revolution did not succeed in overturning this local appropriation. Still, villages had to adapt when dealing with the State, its laws and its new administrators. Avoidance and bypassing were thereafter achievable through a game of cat-and-mouse with the law —introducing local interpretations, playing off some of the regulations against others, etc.). By the start of the Napoleonic era, the school was in the end and more than ever the exclusive preserve of the rural commune.