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to remark, that "whether that government was encouraged by the possession of means so extensive, or prompted by ambition to commence the war which it has ever since waged against the liberties of Europe, it is certain that it derived from the existence of that war a pretext for adopting the system of compulsive military levy." This system he thinks it material to explain in detail to his readers, and for this purpose lays before them, copious extracts from the exposition of the Conscription code, published in the Edinburgh Review. -He then institutes a comparison between this terrible digest of barbarity, and its model, the Roman system of recruitment, in order to show that the former has an intrinsic, peculiar deformity;-features of cruelty and depravity not belonging to the other. The first point of difference, is important to the great question of the general plan of the French government, and cannot be better explained than in the language of the pamphlet:

"With respect to the Romans, then, it may be alleged with truth, that they were propelled by necessity to the adoption of the system of compulsory levy:-such a system was, at that time, essential to their defence against the warlike tribes which pressed their little commonwealth on every side, and threatened it with premature extinction.-The French, on the contrary, adopted the system without necessity, at a time when they could have raised, by voluntary enlistment, an army suf ficiently numerous, not only to defend France, but to make every other state on the continent tremble for its safety.That they adopted it without necessity, is an inference fairly deducible from facts notorious to all the world."

Some of these facts our author enumerates. Nothing more, however, can be wanting than a mere general knowledge of the circumstances of the continent, and of the resources of France, in spirit, population, and treasure, now and at every period of her revolutionary history, to convince the most bigotted of her admirers, that she can and could raise, without resorting to the system of conscription, "a military force more than sufficient for any legitimate purpose." If so, as this writer justly exclaims, how terrible a responsibility have they incurred, who introduced, and, he might have added,-who maintain this system! What a mass of human misery have they unnecessarily produced! How many curses are daily and hourly imprecated on their heads! How many accusing sighs and groans are registered in Heaven against them!

To us, who have witnessed the operation of this horrible Scourge, there seems nothing artificial or misplaced in such

exclamations as these, or in any others of a still more impassioned tenor on the same subject.-When we recollect what we have seen, we bow to the supremacy of French guilt and misery, to use a phrase of Curran, " in the undissembled homage of deferential horror."-The unutterable anguish of which we have been spectators, the suicides which fell under our observation, occasioned by the terrors of a final separation between parent and child, under the most appalling prospects, still haunt our stricken imagination, and would prompt us,forgetful of the stupor which locks the judgment and the heart of our rulers, to obtest their reason and their humanity, and warn them, in the intensity of our experimental loathing, against the criminal and destructive fraternity, which they are now seeking with the fell mover of so monstrous an engine of oppression.*

Another feature, which, according to o author, distinguishes the French from the Roman system, this,-that the term of service in the latter was limited, while in the other it is unlimited.-But a still more disgusting and cruel refinement in the modern code, is what we shall proceed to state, in the words of the pamphlet:

"The Romans, of course, punished the refractory conscript and the deserter: the French inflict punishment not on them only, but-proh pudor! on their innocent parents! In all the annals of tyranny nothing can be found more detestable than this. The statutes of Draco were said, because of their excessive rigour, to have been written in blood; but he, sanguinary as he was-or Nero, or Caligula, never dared so far to outrage human feelings, as to enact a law inflicting punishment on parents for the crimes of their children. A stranger to the character of the French military code, and of the French government, would suppose that this excessive rigour, this novelty, this anomaly in legislation, was reserved for offences of the deepest dye. How great would be his astonishment, and, if he possessed one particle of virtuous feeling, how glowing would

On the subject of the agency of the conscription, we would subjoin to the exclamations of indignation, grief and terror which it so naturally wrings from every one, who, like our author, examines it in its details,-as a solace to his and our own feelings, and an admonition to those who would, as it were, concur in perpetuating its duration,-that he at whose nod it might cease, is himself a victim to pangs scarcely less excruciating, than those which he occasions in others; that he writhes, even amidst the din of arms and the parade of royalty, under the severest torments which conscience, the severest of all tormenters, can inflict.

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be his indignation, when he learnt, that it was aimed at a venial trespass, at an offence not malum in se, but only malum prohibitum-that its object was to prevent human beings from attempting to escape perpetual slavery."

On this topic of the amercement of the parents of refractory conscripts, we could cite a multitude of cases of the most harrowing atrocity, which came within our own immediate knowledge, during our residence in France.-One among the number, with the circumstances of which we were particularly affected, forcibly recals itself at this moment to our recollection.

In attending a public examination in Paris, of the pupils of the Abbé Sicard, the celebrated instructer of the deaf and dumb, we found ourselves seated near to a person of a genteel appearance, habited in deep mourning, and in whose countenance was pourtrayed the deepest affliction of mind. Although objects of this description had become almost familiar to our eye in the French capital, there were about this individual, indications of grief so fixed and overwhelming, that our attention was particularly attracted to him, during the whole of the exhibition. We observed him, in the intervals between the Abbé Sicard's interrogatories, showing to the persons next to him, something in the shape of a portrait; in doing which, he appeared to be strongly moved.

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The curiosity and sympathy which he awakened altogether, induced us to accost him, as soon as we were at liberty to do so, and to request permission to inspect what we had seen in his hands. He presented it to us willingly, but not without lively emotion, and shedding at the same time a flood of tears. We discovered that what we had supposed to be a portrait, was a petition to the Empress Josephine, worked in hair, and executed with admirable skill and beauty. It stated, that the petitioner was the father of eight children; and that he depended for the support of his numerous family, solely upon his gains as an artist in this material;-that two of his sons were refractory conscripts, and were then suffering the penalties of the law, in one of the dépots formed for the reception of this description of malefactors; that the fines imposed on him, on account of their delinquency, were too heavy for his means, and threatened him with beggary; that he had travelled on foot from Bordeaux, where he resided, in order to throw himself at her feet, and to solicit her intercession in his own favour, and for an alleviation of the fate of the unhappy criminals; and that, in the composition of what was thus submitted to her, he had employed the hair of his remaining offspring, and a portion of his own grey locks.

After reading this piteous statement, we questioned him more particularly, and were informed, that some days had then elapsed since his arrival in the metropolis, but that, being destitute of suitable patrons, he had not succeeded in bringing his petition under the eye of her Imperial majesty. He had adopted the plan, of frequenting all the public exhibitions, to which he could gain access, in the hope, that by disclosing his case, and making known his singular talent, in the way we then saw, he might at length excite the compassionate zeal, of some individual able to befriend him efficaciously. We could readily understand from his manner, that he was not sanguine as to the success of his application, even should it reach the throne, so inflexible, according to his own remark, was the government, in relation to whatever interfered with its military regulations. His two sons, the causes of his distress, and for

The principles upon which these are still executed, and the alacrity with which they are obeyed, may be judged of by the following "extract," published in a Bordeaux paper, from the Registry of decrees, of the prefecture of the Gironde,

The Prefect of the department of the Gironde,

Baron of the empire.

30th June, 1811.

Taking into consideration the circular of the counsellor of state, director general of the conscription, dated 30th May last, in which he orders judg ment to be given without delay, and all those conscripts of 1811 to be condemned as refractory, who did not make their appearance at the reviews of the different departments, or who abandoned their detachment during their march;

Taking into consideration the complaint made by the captain of recruits, in execution of the 68th article of the imperial decree of the 8th fructidor, the 13th year, against the dilatory conscripts of 1811, and deserters during the march;

Considering, that, there are, perhaps, amongst the individuals who have been denounced to us as being in a state of insubordination, some conscripts who yielding to dangerous counsels, hope to escape the pursuit which is instituted against them, and that the certainty which they must feel, of being discovered by the authorities, by destroying this hope, will recal them to their duty;

That a last exhortation addressed to all conscripts and to their families, will deprive of all shadow of complaint, those who obstinately persist in disobedience, and who will finally be condemned as refractory conscripts, de

crees

Art. 1st. The list of dilatory conscripts and deserters of 1811, who have been pointed out to us by the captain of recruits, will be printed at the end of the present decree, and transmitted to the mayors charged with noti fying it to the families of these conscripts.

4th. Those conscripts who, by the 20th July next, do not conform to the regulations expressed in part third of the present decree, will be declared refractory, and in consequence of this sentence denounced to the imperial procurators, in order to be condemned to the punishment expressed in the 70th article of the decree of the 8th fructidor of the 13th year.

The mayors are charged to give, before the 15th July, to the under prefects, instructions with regard to the parents of the conscripts named on the

whom he appeared to feel much more than for himself, had both been educated as artists, one in his own line of occupation. They had, in concert, endeavoured to escape the operation of the conscription, and after successfully eluding for some time the pursuit of the gendarmerie, were at length betrayed into the hands of the mayor of one of the municipalities. We afterwards encountered the father at the same institution on another occasion, but lost sight of him soon afterwards, and were never able to learn whether he had finally accomplished his purpose.

Our author dwells with much feeling on the miserable condition of the conscript. The picture he draws of the evils, to which the youth of France are exposed, under the operation of the military system,-and which, as we can attest, excite with them and their relatives, a degree of abhorrence and dismay correspondent to the reality,-is fully warranted by the tenor of the printed code, and by the experience of every attentive observer, who has visited that country within the last ten years.-The following passages from the pamphlet, and many others which our limits do not allow us to quote, are strictly in unison with the fact, and illustrative of the true character and views of the French government.

"If, prompted by an insurgent consciousness of right,' the unhappy man makes an effort to release himself by flight from the iron grasp of military despotism, he only subjects himself and all who are dear to him, to more protracted torments. An enormous fine is levied on his property, or if he has none, on that of his parents, who have no control over his actions, no share in the offence. His paternal lands, or the savings of his happier years are swallowed by the devouring gulf of imperial rapacity. His relatives are turned out, houseless and moneyless, to encounter the cruel buffetings of an unpitying world; or, on suspicion of connivance, are subjected to punishments still more severe. If he be taken, either death, the last resource of the unhappy, releases him at once from his misery, or, he is condemned to suffer a punishment of long protracted

list, in order that they may be enabled to regulate, if there is occasion, the fine which they are to demand of them.

They will inform the subordinate prefects at the same time of the amount of the taxes paid by the conscripts and by their parents.

The maximum of the fine will be imposed, if the information required by law is not given in by the 15th July next.

The present decree will be printed and affixed in all the towns of the department.

Done at Bordeaux, at the Hotel of the Prefecture, the day, month, and year, above stated.

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