  Since the discovery of the first bona-fide brown dwarfs and extra-solar
planets in 1995, the field of low mass stars and substellar objects has
considerably progressed, both from theoretical and observational
viewpoints.Recent developments in the physics entering the modeling of these
objects have led to significant improvements in the theory and to a better
understanding of their mechanical and thermal properties. This theory can now
be confronted with observations directly in various observational diagrams
(color-color, color-magnitude, mass-magnitude, mass-spectral type), a stringent
and unavoidable constraint which became possible only recently, with the
generation of synthetic spectra. In this paper, we present the current
state-of-the-art general theory of low-mass stars and sub-stellar objects, from
one solar mass to one Jupiter mass, regarding primarily their interior
structure and evolution. This review is a natural complement to the previous
review on the atmosphere of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs (Allard et al
1997). Special attention is devoted to the comparison of the theory with
various available observations. The contribution of low-mass stellar and
sub-stellar objects to the Galactic mass budget is also analysed.
