in a state of unremitting activity. No great commander has ever appeared, with whom this was not a leading maxim; and it may be taken as an axiom, that no conquering army will ever iffue from the walls of an idle garrifon, or the ale-houses of a populous city. In attending to the general analogy of our conftitution, we must be at once fenfible, that the foldier who, when at a distance from the theatre of war, is not inured to extreme labour, and the officer whofe eye is not habitually exercifed in contemplating the image of his profeffion, in fomewhat of its native proportions, can never be well prepared for the duties of a campaign. The fcience of command, and the mechanifm of fubordination, are not to be acquired by the mere manual training, or by the evolutions of fmall bodies of men; but must be ftudied on a large fcale-in great camps and general movements. All the commentators on the tactics of the antients, are struck with the importance which they attached to these objects; and represent the fatigues of their military, even in an interval of peace, as prodigies of human endurance. Auguftus, Adrian and Trajan employed the 170,000 men that conftituted the peace establishment of their empire, in public works; and it is to their labours that we may trace the great roads, bridges and causeways, of which fuch magnificent vestiges are still extant in the fouthern parts of Europe. We need not expatiate upon the chances of fuccefs for a general who wages war with an army to which there is truly no other difference between the field of battle and the field of parade, than the effufion of blood. There is no part of the Roman policy which the French have more ftudiously copied, than their attention to military difcipline. It is their intention, as they exprefs it, to form Une generation propre à la guerre et à la gloire - Un peuple guerrier porté à la gloire par ses lois,' &c. And for this purpofe, the boys of all the lycées of the empire are made to march to their claffes by the found of the drum, and are taught the manual exercise during their hours of recreation. The exercises of the confcripts, after their union at the depots, are inceffant, and of a nature to qualify them for the fevereft hardships. Not a moment of reft is allowed in the short interval between their incorporation and their march to the frontiers or to the enemy. The troops retained in France, indulges in an emphatic exclamation, concerning its influence on the happiness of families in the country. Adopting the preceeding data with regard to France, conjecturing what must be the situation of her tributary states at this moment, and considering our resources, we may still perhaps apply, to the present period, a remark made by Mr Burke in 1769, that England is more lightly taxed than any other country in Europe;' with a system of collection infinitely less vexatious and oppressive. France, which always confift of raw recruits, are collected in numerous bodies, and difciplined without intermiffion, upon a scale large enough to familiarize the private to the tumult of general action, and the officer to the use of the military coup d'oeuil. The camp of Boulogne is intended for this purpofe; and should rather be imitated as a nursery for foldiers, than dreaded as an affemblage of invaders. Fatigue, and the penalties of misconduct, make a dreadful havoc among the confcripts, whofe youth and condition entail a peculiar delicacy of frame and habits. The wafte of life, however, is not one of the objects of imperial folicitude. An unlimited controul over the population of the country, enables them to replace every deficiency, and the furvivors are poured into the field with bodies moulded into ftrength, + and minds completely broken to the yoke. Thus, it was found that, with the aid of this probation, of auftere difcipline,-and of confidence in their commanders, the French troops fupported the privations and feve rities of the winter campaign of Poland, better than their adverfaries, who fought under every natural advantage. The fear of punishment, the dread of fhame, and the hope of reward, are all made to operate in their fyftem with the strongest effect. Blows, which tend to weaken the fenfe of perfonal dig. nity, are never given; but, when the refources of reproach and difgrace prove infufficient, recourfe is had to the utmoft rigours of folitary imprisonment, and to the penalties we have detailed in a former part of this article. They know the full value, too, of that esprit de corps, which has fo often changed poltroons into heroes; and employ every art to excite and maintain it, by minute divifions and invidious oppofitions, employed particularly during the operations of a campaign. It requires little more than one or two years to make veterans of men thus fafhioned and conducted; who, according to the bent of their genius, are precipitated in every movement, and d on impetuoufly to every attack; and whofe murmurs, if time were given for the intrufion of difcon tent, * Were I to raise a new army, says Machiavel, I would choose them between 17 and 40 ;-to recruit an old one, I would always have them of seventeen. (Art. de la Guerre, liv. 1. c. 6.) + We have received a particular account of the toilsome and incessant exercises of a body of 20,000 men, encamped at Meudon, in August 1806, under the pretext of rewarding their exploits in the North with a great festival at Paris. This was meant as a mask to their leaders' designs upon Prussia, which were then irrevocably determined. No festival was ever celebrated; but the troops were exercised for six hours a day in a deep and wet meadow, Bonaparte himself directing their manoeuvres the whole time; and sometimes under a course of almost incessant rain and tempest. tent, would be loft in the tumults of inceffant agitation. By the difperfion of the new confcripts, as we have feen individually among their veteran predeceflors of a few campaigns, disaffection evaporates without danger to the Government; and the former are gradually affimilated to their companions. Once without the fphere of their domeftic attractions, with no hope of escape, and confcious that their destiny is irreversibly fixed, they accommodate themfelves to circumftances with the facility which belongs to a temperament preeminently flexible and ardent. They are kept as much as poffible beyond the frontiers, not merely for the purposes of conqueft and rapine, but in order that they may the fooner lofe the qualities of the citizen, and become altogether the creatures of the general. With a view to render this converfion more perfect, and more fecure for the Government, the principal leaders are frequently transferred from one corps to another, in order that no dangerous attachment to individuals may arife from a long continuance in the fame command. * If their fervice has its extraordinary hardships, it has alfo its peculiar rewards. Their prototypes of antiquity never more fuccefsfully reconciled the restraints of difcipline and the license of pillage. Death is inexorably inflicted, as we have feen announced in their bulletins, for the flighteft tranfgreffions, when it is deemed expedient to enforce order: but we need not be told, that the fignal for riot is often given by the general, and the abstinence of the foldier fully requited. After twenty years, he becomes of right a member of the legion of honour; and, as fuch, is entitled to a fmall penfion for life. This long term, however, is anticipated in numerous inftances. Individuals who fignalize themselves are promoted on the field of battle, or fingled from the ranks with the most encouraging folemnities; and fometimes, for very obvious reasons, invested with the infignia of the order, and difmiffed to their homes with the booty they may have acquired. By a law of the Directory, no person (with the exception of engineers) could become officers, who had not served three years in a subordinate capacity. The revolution naturally opened the way to merit; and, seconded by this admirable policy, has filled all the posts of their army with men, who unite in themselves the qualities of the soldier with the excellences that qualify for command. It is not hazarding too much to assert, that nine tenths of the present French officers have sprung from the ranks. Educated * Machiavel (Art. de la Guer.) attributes all the civil wars and conspiracies of the Roman empire, after the time of Julius Cæsar, to the maintenance of the generals in the same command. 1 Educated in distant camps, they know no other country; and, habituated by long devotion to the trade of war, it has become their element and their passion. Their whole fortune is staked on the sword; and their attachment is therefore necessarily secured, under the auspicious influence of a leader, whose indefatigable ambition occupies them in their favourite pursuits, and whose liberal impartiality feeds the hope of preferment, and divides the fruits of conquest. To their credit and example is due much of that spirit, which, notwithstanding the causes of alienation heretofore detailed, seems to animate the whole frame of the army; and no small share of that portentous success which has attended the course of the French arms. Of the eighteen Marechaux d'Empire, fourteen have either emerged from the ranks, or ascended from the lowest employments. Most of the generals of division, and others who hold the principal commands, have the same origin, and sufficiently prove that war is an expe * rimental * Bessieres, originally a common soldier, became in 1796 a captain of infantry in the army of Italy.-Brune, a printer at the commencement of the revolution, a member of the club of Cordeliers, and an intimate friend of Danton, commenced his military career in 1793.— Augereau, a private in the Neapolitan service in 1787, became soon after a fencing-master at Naples; in 1792 entered as a volunteer in the army of Italy; and in 1794 was a general of brigade in the army of the Pyrennees.-Bernadotte, at the commencement of the revolution, a serjeant in the regiment de Royal Marine; in 1794 a general of division.-Jourdan enlisted in 1778, but left the service in 1784; was a shopkeeper at the commencement of the revolution.-Kellerman began his career as a simple hussar in the regiment of Conflans.Lasnes, originally a common soldier, became, in 1795, adjutant of division in the national guard of Paris.-Massena, a subaltern in the Sardinian service at the beginning of the revolution, in 1793 became a general of brigade.-Mortier, a captain of a volunteer company in his native province at the same period.-Ney, an hussar, an adjutant-general in 1796, after passing through all the inferior grades. -Lefebre, son of a miller of Alsace, became a serjeant in the regiment of French guards before the revolution.-Perignon, after acting as a justice of peace at Montesch, engaged in the army, and passed rapidly through all the subordinate grades, and, in 1794, commanded the army of the Eastern Pyrennees.-Soult was a subaltern before the revolution, in a regiment of infantry, and an adjutant-general in 1795.-Murat served originally in the constitutional guard of Louis XVI.; became afterwards an officer in the 12th regiment of chasseurs à cheval, &c.-Junot began his career, in 1792, as a grenadier in one of the volunteer battalions commanded by General Pille; and, in 1796, was one of the aids-de-camp of Bonaparte. rimental science, and that military renown is not the prerogative of birth, but the harvest of toil, or the bounty of fortune. These men, whose duties have almost wholly estranged them from the refinements and indulgences of polished intercourse, retain all the leading features of their original department in life; a fierce and turbulent nature,-a wild, irregular ambition,-a total ignorance of the utility of civil laws, and a sovereign contempt for letters. As they partake largely of the prey, they zealously cooperate in the views of him, whom necessity or chance has led them to acknowledge as a master; but, should he be prematurely removed from the scene, we are not inclined to suppose, that his posthumous aims will be accomplished with equal fidelity. If it be true, as has been remarked, that military govern ments are at all times hostile to regular monarchical succession, we can scarcely conceive the possibility of a quiet transmission of power in France, under her present circumstances. The military, of every description, are also said to be very unfit guardians for a legal constitution; and this observation is particularly applicable to the imperial generals, in whose minds no idea of subordination to civil authority, or of uncontested descent in the reigning family, could ever have taken root. The same daring enterprize which has borne them forward to their present elevation would not suffer them to remain inactive, if supreme command were placed within their reach. They would tear the sceptre from a feeble hand, and dispute the prize with the same ferocious violence, and desperate resolution, with which they are now grasping at the dominion and the treasures of the rest of the world. During their contentions, the Continent might indeed be allowed to respire; but, independent of the established maxim, that a conquering nation must always be miserable, we confess that we can see no prospect of amelioration for France herself. The establishment of freedom in that country must be viewed, we think, as hopeless; nor can it be denied, that the great bulk of the people, while they are incapable of the temperate enjoyment, are decidedly adverse to the form of a popular government. Some expec tation may be excited by the external frame of the Electoral Colleges and Deliberative Assemblies; but this is completely checked by an examination of their actual condition. They have no basis of antient opinion to command respect; no reputation of consistency to inspire confidence; and have not, indeed, in the view of any branch of the community, an existence or a will, distinct from that of the throne to which they are appended. Under the shadow of a constitution still preserved, their election can never take place, unless ratified by the Emperor; and is universally |