The Modern Regime Volume I Part 24

* through what a recoil to the lower and most unwholesome forms of old militant societies,

* through what retrograde steps towards brutal and selfish instincts,

* towards the sentiments, habits and morality of the antique city and of the barbarous tribe

is only too well known.[3262] It is sufficient for us to place the two military systems face to face, that of former times and that of to-day: formerly, in Europe, a few soldiers, some hundreds of thousands; to-day, in Europe, 18 millions of actual or eventual soldiers, all the adults, even the married, even fathers of families summoned or subject to call for twenty-five years of their life, that is to say, as long as they continue able-bodied men; formerly, for the heaviest part of the service in France, no lives are confiscated by decree, only those bought by contract, and lives suited to this business and elsewhere idle or mischievous; about one hundred and fifty thousand lives of inferior quality, of mediocre value, which the State could expend with less regret than others, and the sacrifice of which is not a serious injury to society or to civilization. To-day, for the same service in France, 4 millions of lives are taken by authority, and, if they attempt to escape, taken by force; all of them, from the twentieth year onward, employed in the same manual and murderous pursuit, including the least suited to the purpose and the best adapted to other purposes, including the most inventive and the most fecund, the most delicate and the most cultivated, those remarkable for superior talent (Page 232/526)who are of almost infinite social value, and whose forced collapse, or precocious end, is a calamity for the human species.

Such is the terminal fruit of the new Regime; military duty is here the counterpart, and as it were, the ransom of political right; the modern citizen may balance one with the other like two weights in the scale. On the one side, he may place his prerogative as sovereign, that is to say, in point of fact, the faculty every four years of giving one vote among ten thousand for the election or non-election of one deputy among six hundred and fifty; on the other side, he may place his positive, active service, three, four or five years of barrack life and of pa.s.sive obedience, and then twenty-eight days more, then a thirteen-days'

summons in honor of the flag, and, for twenty years, at each rumor of war, anxiously waiting for the word of command which obliges him to shoulder his gun and slay with his own hand, or be slain. He will probably end by discovering that the two sides of the scales do not balance and that a right so hollow is poor compensation for so heavy a burden.

Of course, in 1789, he foresaw nothing like that; he was optimistic, pacific, liberal, humanitarian; he knew nothing of Europe nor of history, nothing of the past nor of the present. When the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly const.i.tuted him a sovereign, he let things go on; he did not know what he engaged to do, he had no idea of having allowed such a heavy claim against him. But, in signing the social contract, he made himself responsible; in 1793, the note came due and the Convention collected it.[3263] Then comes Napoleon who put things in order.

Henceforth, every male, able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no more exemptions in the way of military service:[3264] all young men who had reached the required age drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn according to the order fixed by their drafted number.[3265] But Napoleon is an intelligent creditor; he knows that this debt is "most frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are real, living men and therefore different in kind, that the head of the State should keep these differences in mind, that is to say their condition, their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that, not only in their private interest, but again in the interest of the public, not merely through prudence but also through equity, all should not be indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to the same manual labor, to the same prolonged and indefinite servitude of soul and body. Already, under the Directory, the law had exempted young married men and widowers or divorced persons who were fathers.[3266] Napoleon also exempts the conscript who has a brother in the active army, the only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans, the son of a father seventy-one years old dependent on his labor, all of whom are family supports. He joins with these all young men who enlist in one of his civil militias, in his ecclesiastical militia or in his university militia, pupils of the ecole Normale, ignorantin brothers, seminarians for the priesthood, on condition that they shall engage to do service in their vocation and do it effectively, some for ten years, others for life, subject to a discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid, as military discipline.[3267] Finally, he sanctions or inst.i.tutes volunteer subst.i.tutes, through private agreement between a conscript and the able-bodied, certified volunteer subst.i.tute for whom the conscript is responsible.[3268] If such a bargain is made between them it is done freely, knowing what they are about, and because each man finds the exchange to his advantage; the State has no right to deprive either of them uselessly of this advantage, and oppose an exchange by which it does not suffer. So far from suffering it often gains by it. For, what it needs is not this or that man, Peter or Paul, but a man as capable as Peter or Paul of firing a gun, of marching long distances, of resisting inclemencies, and such are the subst.i.tutes it accepts. They must all be[3269] "of sound health and robust const.i.tution," and sufficiently tall; as a matter of fact, being poorer than those replaced, they are more accustomed to privation and fatigue; most of them, having reached maturity, are worth more for the service than youths who have been recruited by antic.i.p.ation and too young; some are old soldiers: and in this case the subst.i.tute is worth twice as much as the new conscript who has never donned the knapsack or bivouacked in the open air.

Consequently, those who are allowed to obtain subst.i.tutes are "the drafted and conscripts of all cla.s.ses,... unable to endure the fatigues of war, and those who shall be recognized of greater use to the State by continuing their labors and studies than in forming a part of the army...."[3270]

Napoleon had too much sense to be led by the blind existences of democratic formulae; his eyes, which penetrated beyond mere words, at once perceived that the life of a simple soldier, for a young man well brought up and a peasant or for day-laborer, is unequal. A tolerable bed, sufficient clothing, good shoes, certainty of daily bread, a piece of meat regularly, are novelties for the latter but not for the former, and, consequently, enjoyments; that the promiscuity and odor of the barrack chamber, the corporal's cursing and swearing and rude orders, the mess-dish and camp-bread, physical hardships all day and every other day, are for the former, but not for the latter, novelties and, consequently, sufferings. From which it follows that, if literal equality is applied, positive inequality is established, and that by virtue even of the new creed, it is necessary, in the name of true equality as in the name of true liberty, to allow the former, who would suffer most, to treat fairly and squarely with the latter, who will suffer less. And all the more because, by this arrangement, the civil staff preserves for itself its future recruits; it is from nineteen to twenty-six that the future chiefs and under-chiefs of the great work of peaceful and fruitful labor, the savants, artists or scholars, the jurisconsults, engineers or physicians, the enterprising men of commerce or of industry, receive and undertake for themselves a special and superior education, discover or acquire their leading ideas, and elaborate their originality or their competency. If talent is to be deprived of these productive years their growth is arrested in full vegetation, and civil capacities, not less precious for the State than military capacities, are rendered abortive.[3271]--Towards 1804,[3272]

owing to subst.i.tution, one conscript out of five in the rural districts, one conscript out of seven in the towns, and, on the average, one conscript out of ten in France, escapes this forced abortive condition; in 1806, the price of a subst.i.tute varies from eighteen hundred to four thousand francs,[3273] and as capital is scarce, and ready money still more so, a sum like this is sufficiently large. Accordingly, it is the rich or well-to-do cla.s.s, in other words the more or less cultivated cla.s.s, which buys off its sons: reliance may be placed on their giving them more or less complete culture. In this way, it prevents the State from mowing down all its sprouting wheat and preserves a nursery of subjects among which society is to find its future elite.--Thus attenuated, the military law is still rigid enough: nevertheless it remains endurable. It is only towards 1807[3274] that it becomes monstrous and grows worse and worse from year to year until it becomes the sepulcher of all French youth, even to taking as canon fodder the adolescent under age and men already exempt or free by purchase. But, as before these excesses, it may still be maintained with certain modifications; it suffices almost to retouch it, to establish exemptions and the privilege of subst.i.tution as rights, which were once simply favors,[3275] reduce the annual contingent, limit the term of service, guarantee their lasting freedom to those liberated, and thus secure in 1818 a recruiting law satisfactory and efficacious which, for more than half a century, will attain its ends without being too detrimental or too odious, and which, among so many laws of the same sort, all mischievous, is perhaps the least pernicious.

[Footnote 3201: "The Ancient Regime," book II., ch. 2, 3, 4, and book V.

(Laff. I. pp. 95 to 125 and pp. 245 to 308.)]

[Footnote 3202: La Bruyere is, I believe, the first of these precursors.

Cf. his chapters on "The Great," on "Personal Merit," on "The Sovereign and the Republic," and his chapter on "Man," his pa.s.sages on "The Peasants," on "Provincial Notes," etc. These appeals, later on, excite the applause given to the "Marriage of Figaro." But, in the antic.i.p.atory indictment, they strike deeper; there is no gayety in them, the dominant sentiment being one of sadness, resignation, and bitterness.]

[Footnote 3203: "Discours p.r.o.nonce par l'ordre du roi et en sa presence, le 22 fevrier 1787," by M. de Calonne, controleur-general, p.22. "What remains then to fill this fearful void (in the finances)? Abuses.

The abuses now demanding suppression for the public weal are the most considerable and the best protected, those that are the deepest rooted and which send out the most branches. They are the abuses which weigh most heavily on the working and producing cla.s.ses, the abuses of financial privileges, the exceptions to the common law and to so many unjust exemptions which relieve only a portion of the taxpayers by aggravating the lot of the others; general inequality in the distribution of subsidies and the enormous disproportion which exists in the taxation of different provinces and among the offices filled by subjects of the same sovereign; severity and arbitrariness in the collection of the taille; bureaux of internal transportation, and obstacles that render different parts of the same kingdom strangers to each other; rights that discourage industry; those of which the collection requires excessive expenditure and innumerable collectors."]

[Footnote 3204: De Segur, "Memoires," III., 591. In 1791, on his return from Russia, his brother says to him, speaking of the Revolution: "Everybody, at first, wanted it.. From the king down to the most insignificant man in the kingdom, everybody did something to help it along; one let it come on up to his shoe-buckle, another up to his garter, another to his waist, another to his breast, and some will not be content until their head is attacked!"]

[Footnote 3205: My French dictionary tells me that the Carmagnole is not only a popular revolutionary dance but also a short and tight jacket worn by the revolutionaries between 1792 and 1795 and that it came via Ma.r.s.eille with workers from the town of Carmagnola in Piedmont. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3206: "The Revolution," pp. 271-279. (Laff. I. 505 to 509.)--Stourm "Les Finances de l'ancien regime et de la Revolution," I., 171 to 177.--(Report by Ramel, January 31, 1796.) "One would scarcely believe it--the holders of real-estate now owe the public treasury over 13 milliards."--(Report by Gaudin, Germinal, year X. on the a.s.sessment and collection of direct taxes.) "This state of things const.i.tuted a permanent, annual deficit of 200 millions."]

[Footnote 3207: "The Ancient Regime," p. 99, and "The Revolution,"

p.407. (Laff. I. pp 77-78 and II. 300) (About 1,200 millions per annum in bread for Paris, instead of 45 millions for the civil and military household of the King at Versailles.)]

[Footnote 3208: "The Ancient Regime," p. 68. (Laff. I. p. 55)--Madame Campan, "Memoires," I., 291, 292.]

[Footnote 3209: "The Revolution," II., 151, and III., 500. (Laff. II.

282-283)]

[Footnote 3210: "Memorial." (Napoleon's own words.) "The day when, adopting the unity and concentration of power, which could alone save us,... the destinies of France depended solely on the character, measures and conscience of him who had been clothed with this accidental dictatorship--beginning with that day, public affairs, that is to stay the State, was myself... I was the keystone of an entirely new building and how slight the foundation! Its destiny depended on each of my battles. Had I been defeated at Marengo you would have then had a complete 1814 and 1815."]

[Footnote 3211: Beugnot, "Memoires," II., 317. "To be dressed, taxed, and ordered to take up arms, like most folks, seemed a punishment as soon as one had found a privilege within reach," such, for example, as the t.i.tle of "dechireur de bateaux" (one who condemns unseaworthy craft and profits by it), or inspector of fresh b.u.t.ter (using his fingers in tasting it), or tide-waiter and inspector of salt fish. These t.i.tles raised a man above the common level, and there were over twenty thousand of them.]

[Footnote 3212: See "The Ancient Regime," p. 129. (Laff. I. p. 99)]

[Footnote 3213: Madame de Remusat, "Memoires," III., 316, 317.]

[Footnote 3214: De Beausset, "Interieur du palais de Napoleon" I., p.

9 et seq.. For the year 1805 the total expense is 2,338,167 francs; for the year 1806 it reaches 2,770,861 francs, because funds were a.s.signed "for the annual augmentation of plate, 1,000 silver plates and other objects."--"Napoleon knew, every New Year's day, what he expended (for his household) and n.o.body ever dared overpa.s.s the credits he allowed."]

[Footnote 3215: "The Ancient Regime," pp. 350-357.(Laff. I. 259-266)]

[Footnote 3216: "The Revolution," I. pp. 276-281.(Laff. pp.

508-510)--Stourm, ibid., 168-171. (Speech by Benard-Lagrave to the Five Hundred, Pluviose II, year IV.) "It cannot be concealed that, for many years, people were willingly accustoming themselves to the non-payment of taxes."]

[Footnote 3217: Stourm, ibid.,II., 365. (Speech of Ozanam to the Five Hundred, Pluviose 14, year VII.) "Scandalous traffic.... Most of the (tax) collectors in the republic are heads and managers of banks."--(Circular of the minister of the finances, Floreal 25 year VII.) "Stock-jobbing of the worst kind to which many collectors give themselves up, using bonds and other public securities received in payment of taxes."--(Report by Gros-Ca.s.saud Florimond, Sep.19, 1799.) "Among the corruptible and corrupting agents there are only too many public functionaries."--Mollien, "Memoires," I., 222. (In 1800, he had just been appointed director of the sinking-fund.) "The commonplace compliment which was everywhere paid to me (and even by statesmen who affected the sternest morality) was as follows--you are very fortunate to have an office in which one may legitimately acc.u.mulate the largest fortune in France. "--Cf. Rocquain, "etat de la France au 18 Brumaire."

(Reports by Lacuee, Fourcroy and Barbe-Marbois.)]

[Footnote 3218: Charlotte de Sohr, "Napoleon en Belgique et en Hollande," 1811, vol. I., 243. (On a high functionary condemned for forgery and whom Napoleon kept in prison in spite of every solicitation.) "Never will I pardon those who squander the public funds.... Ah! parbleu! We should have the good old times of the contractors worse than ever if I did not show myself inexorable for these odious crimes."]

[Footnote 3219: Stourm, ibid., I., 177. (Report by Gaudin, Sep. 15, 1799.) "A few (tax) rolls for the year V, and one-third of those for the year VII, are behindhand."--(Report by the same, Germinal I, year X.) "Everything remained to do, on the advent of the consulate, for the a.s.sessment and collection of direct taxes; 35,000 rolls for the year VII still remained to be drawn up. With the help of the new office, the rolls for the year VII have been completed; those of the year VIII were made out as promptly as could be expected, and those of the year IX have been prepared with a dispatch which, for the first time since the revolution, enables the collections to be begun in the very year to which they belong."]

[Footnote 3220: "Archives parlementaires," VIII., p.11. (Report by Necker to the States-General, May 5, 1789.) "These two-fifths, although legitimately due to the king, are always in arrears.... (To-day) these arrears amount in full to about 80 millions."]

[Footnote 3221: De Foville, "la France economique," p.354.]

[Footnote 3222: "The Ancient Regime," p. 354. (Laff. I. p. 263.)]

[Footnote 3223: Necker, "De l'administration des finances," I., 164, and "Rapport aux etats-generaux," May 5th, 1789. (We arrive at these figures, 179 millions, by combining these doc.u.ments, on both sides, with the observation that the 3rd vingtieme is suppressed in 1789.)]

[Footnote 3224: Charles Nicolas, "les Budgets de la France depuis le commencement du XIXeme siecle" (in tabular form).--De Foville, ibid., 356.--In the year IX, the sum-total of direct taxes is 308 millions; in the year XI. 360, and in the year XII, 376. The total income from real-estate in France towards 1800 is 1,500 millions.]

[Footnote 3225: It is only after 1816 that the total of each of the four direct taxes can be got at (land, individual, personal, doors and windows). In 1821, the land-tax amounts to 265 millions, and the three others together to 67 millions. Taking the sum of 1,580 millions, estimated by the government as the net revenue at this date in France, we find that, out of this revenue, 16.77 % is deducted for land, and that, with the other three, it then abstracts from the same revenue 21 %--On the contrary, before 1789, the five corresponding direct taxes, added to t.i.thes and feudal privileges, abstracted 81.71 % from the net income of the taxable party. (Cf. "The Ancient Regime," pp.346, 347, 351 et seq. Laff. I. pp. 258, 259, 261 and following pages. )]

[Footnote 3226: These figures are capital, and measure the distance which separates the old from the new condition of the laboring and poor cla.s.s, especially in the rural districts; hence the tenacious sentiments and judgments of the people with respect to the Ancient Regime, the Revolution and the Empire.--All local information converges in this sense. I have verified the above figures as well as I could: 1st, by the "Statistiques des prefets," of the year IX and year XIII and afterwards (printed); 2nd, by the reports of the councillors of state on mission during the year IX (published by Rocquam, and in ma.n.u.script in the Archives nationales); 3rd, by the reports of the senators on their senatories and by the prefects on their departments, in 1806, 1809, 1812, 1814 and 1815, and from 1818 to 1823 (in ma.n.u.script in the Archives nationales); 4th, by the observations of foreigners travelling in France from 1802 to 1815.--For example ("A Tour through several of the Middle and Western Departments of France," 1802, p.23): "There are no t.i.thes, no church taxes, no taxation of the poor.... All the taxes together do not go beyond one-sixth of a man's rent-roll, that is to say, three shillings and sixpence on the pound sterling."--("Travels in the South of France, 1807 and 1808," by Lieutenant-Colonel Pinkney, citizen of the United States, p.162.) At Tours a two-story house, with six or eight windows on the front, a stable, carriagehouse, garden and orchard, rents at 20 sterling per annum, with the taxes which are from 1,10, to 2, for the state and about ten shillings for the commune.--("Notes on a Journey through July, August and September, 1814," by Morris Birkbeck, p.23.) Near Cosne (Orleanais), an estate of 1,000 acres of tillable land and 500 acres of woods is rented for nine years, for about 9,000 francs a year, together with the taxes, about 1,600 francs more.--(Ibid., p.91.) "Visited the Brie. Well cultivated on the old system of wheat, oats and fallow. Average rent 16 francs the acre with taxes, which are about one-fifth of the rent."--Roederer, III., 474 (on the senatorerie of Caen, Dec.. 1, 1803): "The direct tax is here in very moderate proportion to the income, it being paid without much inconvenience.--The travellers above quoted and many others are unanimous in stating the new prosperity of the peasant, the cultivation of the entire soil and the abundance and cheapness of provisions.

(Morris Birkbeck, p.11.) "Everybody a.s.sures me that the riches and comfort of the cultivators of the soil have been doubled since twenty-five years." (Ibid., p.43, at Tournon-sur-le-Rhone.) "I had no conception of a country so entirely cultivated as we have found from Dieppe to this place."--(Ibid., P.51,, at Montpellier.) "From Dieppe to this place we have not seen among the laboring people one such famished, worn-out, wretched figure as may be met in every parish of England, I had almost said on almost every farm.... A really rich country, and yet there are few rich individuals."--Robert, "De l'Influence de la revolution sur la population, 1802," p.41. "Since the Revolution I have noticed in the little village of Sainte-Tulle that the consumption of meat has doubled; the peasants who formerly lived on salt pork and ate beef only at Easter and at Christmas, frequently enjoy a pot-a-feu during the week, and have given up rye-bread for wheat-bread."]

[Footnote 3227: The sum of 1 fr. 15 for a day's manual labor is an average, derived from the statistics furnished by the prefects of the year IX to the year XIII, especially for Charente, Deux-Sevres, Meurthe, Moselle and Doubs.]

[Footnote 3228: "The Ancient Regime." p. 353. (Laff. I. p. 262).]

[Footnote 3229: Arthur Young, II., 259. (Average rate for a day's work throughout France in 1789.)]

[Footnote 3230: About 15 millions out of 26 millions, in the opinion of Mallet-Dupan and other observers.--Towards the middle of the 18th century, in a population estimated at 20 millions, Voltaire reckons that "many inhabitants possess only the value of 10 crowns rental, that others have only 4 or 5, and that more than 6 millions of inhabitants have nothing." ("L'homme aux quarante ecus.")--A little later, Chamfort (I., 178) adds: "It is an incontestable truth that, in France, 7 millions of men beg, and 12 millions of men are incapable of giving anything."]

[Footnote 3231: Law of Floreal 3, year X, t.i.tle II, articles 13, 14, -- 3 and 4.]

[Footnote 3232: Charles Nicolas, ibid.--In 1821, the personal and poll tax yields 46 millions; the tax on doors and windows, 21 millions: total, 67 millions. According to these sums we see that, if the recipient of 100 francs income from real-estate pays 16 fr. 77 real-estate tax, he pays only 4 fr. 01 for his three other direct taxes.--These figures, 6 to 7 francs, can nowadays be arrived at through direct observation.--To omit nothing, the a.s.sessment in kind, renewed in principle after 1802 on all parish and departmental roads, should be added; this tax, demanded by rural interests, laid by local authorities, adapted to the accommodation of the taxpayer, and at once accepted by the inhabitants, has nothing in common with the former covee, save in appearance; in fact, it is as easy as the corvee was burdensome.

(Stourm, I., 122.)]

[Footnote 3233: They thus pay between 2 and 6% in taxes, a very low taxation if we compare with the contemporary industrial consumer welfare society, where, in Scandinavia, the average worker pay more than 50% of his income in direct and indirect taxes. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3234: Charles Nicolas, "Les Budgets de la France depuis le commencement du XIXe Siecle," and de Foville, "La France economique,"

p. 365, 373.--Returns of licenses in 1816, 40 millions; in 1820, 22 millions; in 1860, 80 millions; in 1887, 171 millions.]