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nefs and depravity of our nature have rendered indifpenfable to all civilized communities, are, in France, exclufively occupied with one fpecies of delinquency, happily unknown to the rest of the world. They entitle it, Escroquerie en matiere de conscription,' or the extortion of money from perfons liable to service, under fraudulent promifes of procuring them an exemption. A ftranger in this great nation is haunted by the fpectre of the police; but the native is attended by another foul fiend,' still more hideous, and threatening him with more degrading vifitations. We have it from good authority, that a traveller frequently meets, on the high roads, and particularly in the vicinity of the great cities, twenty or thirty of those miferable beings, denominated refractory confcripts, guarded by a body of gendarmerie, and coupled together with a rope attached to a horse's tail, as a badge of disgrace! *

Our readers may have observed, in the details of this system, a semblance of tenderness towards persons whose situation is apt to rouse those indignant feelings-that insurgent consciousness of right, which undisguised oppression never fails to excite even among the most degraded of human beings. Hypocrisy is the defence of fear against just resentment; and may, therefore, be well entitled, not only the homage which vice offers to virtue, but the tribute which despotism pays to liberty. The provisions on the subject of the Reserve, to which we particularly allude, are altogether illusory. The ostensible purpose of its creation is to supply possible deficiencies, and to assist the armies in cases of great emergency. The emergency, however, has always been found to exist Tyrannorum enim preces, nosti, quam permixtæ necessi tatibus;' and the reserve is uniformly compelled to march. Not only are all the conscripts of the current year thus swept away s but those of the preceding years, who have obtained a charter of exemption under the conditions prescribed by law, are also dragged into the field by a decree of the military chief of their de partment. We must not forget to mention another flagrant breach of law, if any enormity can be so called, which is committed, not only with impunity, but under the sanction of public autherity. In the first tumults of the revolution, the parochial regis

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*We find in the Journal de l'Empire, under the Paris head of the 21st October 1807, a paragraph, in which it is stated, that a recent act of amnesty had brought back to their colours two hundred and four refractory conscripts, and ninety-two deserters of the department of Orne; of which department, the whole contingent does not amount to more than 692 in a levy of 60,000 men!

ters, at no period very accurately kept, were almost wholly neglected. As, therefore, no official document can be produced for youths between seventeen and twenty, the recruiting officers, within the two last years, have taken advantage of this circumstance to include in the conscription numbers whose appearance corroborated their assertion, that they were beyond the age, and whose remonstrances were rendered unavailing by their condition in life. The most formidable, however, of all the evils extraneous to the code we have analyzed, is a practice which has prevailed, for some years past, of anticipating by law the regular levies. The conscripts, as we know, of 1810, are already called out; and by this it must be understood, that those, who would then attain the age of twenty, are already made to serve in the armies. These, and other causes connected with the abuse of unlimited power, bring into the field a numerous population of boys, in appearance scarcely able to endure the accoutrements of a soldier, and who, in their preparatory exercises, are objects both of pity and amazement. Un des spectacles les plus extraordinaires de Paris,' said a distinguished personage of that capital to a stranger, c'est celui des jeunes conscrits, qui font leurs exercices dans les Champs Elisées. Les vainqueurs du monde ne sont que des enfans.

For the great majority, even of the better classes of conscripts, it is almost impossible to obtain proxies. When the physical requisites are not wanting in the principal, the government, indeed, studiously discourages substitution. The acknowledged hardships, and indeterminate duration of the military service, tend, moreover, to enhance so enormously the price of the few who are found to possess all the requisite qualifications, that they fall exclusively to the share of the rich. More than 200/. is frequently given for a substitute a sum which, according to the rates of living in France, is much more considerable than with us; and far beyond the means of multitudes, who, in that country, with the habits of refined society, maintain an exterior of tolerable ease. Of this class are the amnestied emigrants and old proprietaries, who enjoy, under the new dynafty, fomething of the abftract right, and but little of the benefits of postliminium; and who, in the bitterness of mortified pride, and the fadnefs of pining recollection, ftruggle to uphold a decent establishment with fmall fragments of their former eftates. *

The

* From the period of the emission of assignats, in the year 1790, until 1801, the sale of national domains in France produced upwards of 100 millions Sterling. These domains were principally made up of the confiscated property of emigrants, and served to defray the

The Revolution has, on the whole, had the effect of an Agrarian law and the equalization of fortunes is, at this moment, among the most prominent veftiges which the tempeft has left behind, for the inftruction of the world;-a confequence over which, in obedience to the dictates of reafon, we thould perhaps exult. But it is not cafy to contemplate, without feelings of ftrong sympathy, the numbers of impoverished families and decayed gentlemen, who, wrestling with memory and deftiny, under a perpetual recurrence of painful comparisons and hopeless wishes, exhibit, throughout France, ftriking monuments of the inftability of human affairs, and falutary examples to the privileged orders and corrupt governments of other countries.

To perfons of this defcription, who hate and defpife their government, to the great body of profeffional men, and of drooping merchants and manufacturers, who educate their children with care and tendernefs, and who find no compenfation in the fplendour of the imperial diadem, for the degradation of their own order, and the lofs of domeftic comfort, the confcription appears the maximum of human fuffering,-the moft odious of all wrongs, and the most vexatious of all injuftice. The Lycées, or public schools, the feminaries of ecclefiaftical noviciate, the universities of law and phyfic, are all subject to the vifits of the recruiting officer, and forced to furrender up their pupils, without exception of genius or tafte, at a period of life when the morals are in a ftate of ofcillation,-when the character of the frame itself is fcarcely determined, and the understanding but in the first stages of development. Parents are not only made to fuffer the pains of a feparation under fuch circumftances, but are condemned to the inexpreffible grief of feeing the principles and manners of their children expofed to total wreck, in the infectious communion of the common foldiery-the meanest and most profligate of mankind. The impreffment of a British feaman is doubtless a revolting fpectacle, but falls far fhort of the scene of real diftrefs, exhibited at the balloting of a confcription, when the parents or friends of the confcript are indulged, as is often the cafe, in drawing his ticket from the fatal urn. The piercing fhrieks and tumultuous acclamations alternately uttered on thefe occafions, by a people to whom Nature has allotted fuch vivacity of character, wholly overpower the feelings of a fpectator, and conduct him irrefiftibly to the conclufions we have adopted, concerning the spirit with which the imperial difpenfations are obeyed.

VOL. XIII. NO. 26.

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public expenses in the first years of the Revolution. (Ramel, Histoire des Finances de la Republique.) Even in 1803, this sale continued, and produced about 18 millions francs. (Comptes Generaux du trésor public.)

We by no means condemn, but indeed cordially approve, a scheme of levies, which would summon, inexorably, all ranks to the defence of the state, and compel the opulent to make ample pecuniary retribution for the loss of their personal service in foreign operations. But the French conscription, as must be already apparent, rests upon quite another basis; and, under the garb of equality, acts with a most partial and vexatious pressure. Men of large fortune, the least respectable of the community of France at this moment, either monopolize the substitutes, or corrupt the inspecting officers, and thus disentangle themselves from the trammels of the law. The parasites of the court, by intrigue and favour, secure the same immunity to themselves and their friends. The great military and civil dignitaries of the empire are privileg ed ex officio; and this exemption will be gradually extended to all whose zeal is useful to prop the greatness of the ruling power. The burden, then, falls with accumulated weight upon the class of persons whom we have mentioned in a former page; and a still greater evil is inflicted, by thus confounding them with the dregs and lees of the community. Feelings and habitudes should be consulted in every general act of legislation; and in this instance, the distress and inconvenience occasioned to the lower orders, bear no proportion to the misery inflicted on the higher and middling ranks of the people. It is unnecessary, too, to have recourse to so compre hensive a plan of compulsion, for the creation of a force adequate to all the purposes of ordinary warfare. Louis XIV., when at war with the whole of the North of Europe, maintained an army of 300,000 men, principally made up by voluntary levies; under the last unfortunate monarch of that name, the forces of the kingdom, recruited in the same manner, amounted to 200,000; of which Paris alone furnished annually 6000, although it now yields but 1400 for the conscription.

and

Notwithstanding the familiarizing experience of the past, and the certain expectation of the future, every new conscription - spreads consternation through all the families of the empire. From the commencement of the war against Prussia, until the termination of the campaign in Poland, three several levies were raised; the last of which, proposed in the spring of 1807, created a sensation that is not to be adequately described. Although all correspondence relative to the position of the armies was rigorously interdicted, and no letters suffered to pass without scrutiny, it was impossible wholly to conceal, at least from the public of Paris, the dreadful mortality which afflicted the march, and the incredible hardships inseparable from the movements of the troops-labouring under a scarcity of provisions, and the unaccustomed rigours of a northern winter. A third conscription was generally

viewed as an undertaking much too bold for the internal administration, situated as it then was,and particularly, at a moment when a belief was current, among all ranks, that the Emperor would be unable to extricate himself from the embarrassments in which he was supposed to be involved. The government appeared sensible of the hazard; and in order to prepare the public mind for the event, caused their intention to be announced in whispers through the circles and three thousand coffee-houses of the capital. The effect was everywhere visible, even to the eye of a cursory observer;-an impression of terror upon the countenances of those, who either were themselves exposed to the danger, or shuddered at the prospect of new revolutionary alarms,-of suspicion, and joy but half disguised, in the lowering brows of the turbulent and disaffected, constantly on the alert to improve the concurrence of opportunity, and who hailed this desperate expedient, as a confirmation of their hopes relative to the perils of the army. The orator of the government, Renaud St. Jean D'Angely, shed tears of real or affected sorrow, as he stated the necessity of the measure; and the Senate received it, contrary to their habit, in silent acquiescence, and with every indication of reluctance and dismay. * In order to assuage the general feeling, it was found adviseable to qualify the new call for 80,000 men, by a clause which enacted, that they were then to be merely organized, and retained within the limits of the empire, as a national guard. Circumstances enabled them to adhere to this condition, which, we need not add, would have been violated, if the armies had sustained a defeat, or the campaign been protracted to a more distant term. It was the established practice of the Romans, in their foreign wars, to maintain an army in Italy, ready to march in case of disaster; and a recourse to the same policy was indispensable for the French commander, to recal Victory, had she deserted his standard, and to drive his antagonist to the conclusion of an ignominious peace, by intimidating him with the show of new and inexhaustible assailants.

It is not easy to convey a just idea of the state of Paris during this period of uncertainty and alarm. We believe, that there never has existed, with a vast majority of its inhabitants, a serious reliance on the stability of the present government; and we are credibly informed, that no doubt was then entertained of its immediate dissolution, if the armies had been broken and dispersed.

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*Before the law was passed by the Senate, the Minister of Police had issued his orders for the appearance of the conscripts of Paris at the registry. So securely did he rely upon the compliant disposition of that venerable body!

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