Meiners! Julia!-Of all, for whose sake chiefly I could have wished my life to be prolonged, I am destined to be the melancholy survivor. The grave now covers you from my eyes. But I have learned to penetrate its gloomy silence, and look into the regions that lie beyond; I have learned to anticipate there some future and more blissful re-union with those whom I love.

I mourn not, O Julia! over thy destiny. Thou art gone from this polluted scene to dwell in purer abodes, from which sorrow and guilt are for ever excluded. I mourn for myself alone; yet wherefore? since, worn out with age and sorrow, I too must quickly fall. I have only to find out some solitary retreat in which to lay down my head, and die in peace.'

Such is war, and such are the blessings which conquerors and warlike statesmen confer on humanity! Yet what a small corner in the wide field of devastation and misery, occasioned by one expedition only, does this volume describe! The most detailed relations of General Brune's progress in Switzerland cannot include the desolation of Langen, nor notice the afflictions under which the aged shoulders of Ignotus now bent; and if such as these pages describe be the misery produced in one sequestered village in consequence of a single battle, what imagination can grasp the sum of that which was caused by the revolution, and all its sanguinary contests.

Jo.

ART. XI. Statistical View of France, compiled from authentic Documents. By the Chevalier de Tinseau. 8vo. pp. 178. 10s. 6d. Boards. Printed by Spilsbury. 1803.

Ν

IN order to ascertain the strength of nations, it is necessary

in the first instance to have recourse to the Book of Numbers; though in forming an accurate estimate of their relative power and resources, circumstances must be taken into the account which must either augment or diminish the result of mere numerical calculation. France displays with pride her vast population; and in her continental connections, it affords her a decided preponderance: but her greatness, compared with that of our empire, is not respectively in the exact proportion of inhabitants. Before France can bring her qumerous legions to act with effect against the sovereignty of Britain, she must subdue our most formidable Navy; and should she be able to accomplish this her darling project, and, to land her troops on our shores, "the unconquerable will, and courage never to submit or yield," of Britons, would oppose a resistance which must falsify arithmetical calculation, and overwhelm the invaders with disgrace. Collected in ourselves, we can contemplate, without the smallest trepidation, the

strength

It

strength of the enemy given in their statistical accounts. is, however, prudent in us to make ourselves well acquainted with the ability and resources of the country with which we are now at war; and, as assisting us in this object, the volume of the Chevalier de Tinseau will be consulted with peculiar interest, since it displays the extent of her territory, and the manner in which her vast population is spred over it.

The Tables, (it is observed,) that will be found in the present work, were drawn up in the tenth year of what is called the French Republic, by command of the Government, and under the direction of the Minister of Justice, Abrial, to whom they were dedicated by Chanlaire and Herbin, who had been appointed to complete and superintend the execution thereof.

The conclusions drawn from the following Tables may, possibly, appear somewhat exaggerated; but as the materials of these conclusions are given in the greatest detail, and as no recent and positive enumeration can be opposed to them, it would be absurd to attack established facts by bare conjectures. Domiciliary researches, and inquisitions of all kinds, have besides been so multiplied by the Revolution, and so much rigour and even cruelty have been employed in these repeated acts of despotism, that it is not reasonable to suppose, that any portion of what it so highly imported them to know, can have escaped the vigilance of the French Government.

I have ascertained, myself, the exactness of those Tables, by comparing the population of certain towns therein stated, with that of the same places, which, previous to the Revolution, I had had an opportunity of being well acquainted with; and have found, in general, the present population of those cities is stated to be inferior to what it was at the former period. I shall only quote a few instances. In the year 1783, Mr. Necker stated the population of the following towns to be; viz.

* In his work "On the Administration of the Finances of

73,649

Rouen

Here shall I stop; but the comparison proves that the new Tables were not intended for exaggeration; and it is easy to account for the causes from which proceeds the decrease of the population of some towns, to such a high degree. For instance, the massacres of the wealthy manufacturers and other inhabitants of Lyons, has occasioned the migration of a vast number of journeymen and others. Lille and Sedan were likewise manufacturing towns. The Court resided at Versailles. The massacres and the destruction of the navy, have thinned Toulon of one-fourth of its inhabitants. Rennes was the capital of an extensive province, the residence of a numerous Noblesse, which has been either murdered or dispersed. Orléans contained a vast number of sugar bake-houses, and besides, a capital dépôt of maritime imports, &c. &c.

If those same Tables state the population of some few towns to be more numerous than formerly, as namely, Bourdeaux and Marseilles, it is to be considered that the enumeration of the inhabitants of those cities has been confounded with the population of their respective Cantons.'

For the purpose also of elucidating the Tables of which this work is composed, the organization of France is thus explained:

This State is at present divided into one hundred and two Departments, being so many totally distinct Provinces. Each Department is itself subdivided into three, four, or five Districts called Communal Arrondissements. These Districts are, in their turn, subdivided into Cantons. Lastly, each Canton is composed of a certain number of Communes; that is to say, of towns and villages. A Commune is sometimes a single town, and sometimes an union of several villages, possessing a Mayor and a Communal Municipality. All the considerable cities are divided into several Communes. The Despot would consider his precarious authority endangered by the reunion of the discontented inhabitants of an entire extensive city. By means of this refinement upon the maxim of tyrants, divide and govern, the inhabitants of the same town have ceased to be fellow-citizens.

Each Department is administered by a Prefect, and as many SubPrefects as it contains Districts. The details of the administration descend from the Sub-Prefects to the Mayors, who are appointed by the Despot. Each District has a primary Judicial Tribunal, and each Department a Criminal Tribunal. Every three Departments possess a Tribunal of Appeal, which takes cognizance, by appeal, of all the causes determined by the Tribunals of the Districts under its jurisdiction. Lastly, each Canton has a Justice of the Peace. All the Tribunals of Appeal acknowledge a superior Tribunal, called the Court of Cassation, possessing the power of annulling the sentences of the Tribunals of Appeal which appear to it illegal, and of referring

We add these numbers to enable the reader to compare the amount of the population of the six largest cities in France, with that of the six largest in England, as given a p. 311, including the capital of each country.

*The six Piedmontese departments are not included in this umber.'

the

the examination of the cause to any other Tribunal it shall please to appoint. All these Judges are in a state of dependence upon the Government; several have been punished for finding innocent men, who had been accused by the Government; and when the Despot is fearful of an opposition to his vengeance, they are displaced by special commissions.

< The Prefects and the Gendarmerie are the two great springs of the Government. The Prefects are appointed by Buonaparté, and can be removed at his pleasure. They enjoy his confidence, and exercise his authority in the Provinces. The Gendarmerie is composed of about 20,000 men, horse and foot, in twenty-seven divisions. Each Gendarme is at once a spy, and a sort of ambulating, armed Justice of Peace, possessing the power of arresting whomsoever he pleases, and of paying domiciliary visits all hours of the day or night.'

An account of the new measures adopted by the French is moreover subjoined:

Hitherto, the measures adopted by the generality of Nations, as well as the subdivisions of those measures, were arbitrarily, or, to speak more correctly, accidentally adopted: such are the English foot, the French toise, &c. The yard is divided into three parts, the toise into six, the Rhinish foot into twelve, &c. Instead of those fundamental measures, arbitrarily taken and divided by every nation, the French have adopted one connected with the dimensions of the globe. This measure, which they call metre, or measure par excellence, from the Greek term perpov, is the ten-millionth part of the fourth of the Terrestrial Meridian, which is, every one knows, the distance from the Pole to the Equator. This primitive measure they have successively multiplied or subdivided by ten, in order to form the greater or smaller measures, by analogy to the decimal system of arithmetic, which is the numeration universally adopted in Europe.

A Metre, as we have already seen, is the ten-millionth part of a quarter of the Terrestrial Meridian. One thousand Metres, or a Kiliometre, the geographical mensuration adopted by the French, is the ten-thousandth part of the same quarter of the Meridian. In order to find out the proportion between the Kiliometre and the Maritime or Italian Mile (of 60 to a degree, which is the geographical measure in most common use), it is to be observed, that the number of miles which the quarter of the Meridian contains is 60x90, or 5,400. The Kiliometre accordingly is to a Mile in the ratio of 5,400 to 10,000, or of 27 to 50: and the square Kiliometre to the square mile, as 27 × 27 to 50 x 50; otherwise as 729 to 2500; that is to say, very nearly as 7:24. Thus it follows, that 24 square Kiliometres = 7 square Miles. Kiliometres accordingly may be reduced into square miles by multiplying the number by 7, and dividing the produce by 24.

Now, as a quarter of the Meridan contains 2250 leagues, of 25 to a degree; a league is to a kiliometre, as 10,000 to 2250, or 40 to 9, which is the geographical measure in most common use: conse quently, a square league is to a square kiliometre, as 40 × 40 to 9 x9, or 1600 to 81; nearly as 79 to 4.

X. 3.

In

In addition to the details contained in the several Tables, will be found a list of the 500 principal cities and towns in France, divided into 14 classes, according to the number of their inhabitants, and a general alphabetical Table of the Departments; together with an account of the Population, territorial extent, number of Districts, Cantons, and Communes; of personal, sumptuary, and other Contributions, either on Moveables or Immoveables; on Doors, Windows, and Letters-Patent; of the hundredths additional Duty; and lastly, of the Expence of Administration, Justice, and public Instruction, in each Department, for the 11th year of the new French Era.

Hence it appears that the territorial extent of France in Kiliometres is 636,343, or 185,600 square miles that the total amount of her Population (exclusively of that of the Piedmontese Departments, which is reckoned at 1,946,800) is 33,104,343; and that the general total of Contributions is 320,165,425 francs, of 24 to the sterling pound's metallic

value.

These Tables prove that France, by her conquests, has increased her antient territory by an extent of 23,790 square miles, and her population by 5,114,419 persons, (without including Piedmont, estimated at nearly two millions,) which is nearly 215 to a square mile.

The Chevalier adds:

If now we deduct 5,114,419 souls for 23,790 square miles, the extent of the conquered countries, we shall find that the population of former France amounted to 27,989,924 souls, over 161,8 to square miles of territory, which was little more than 172 inhabitants for a mile; whereas, that of the conquered countries gives 215. Thus it appears that the population of former France amounts, in a square number, to 28,000,000 souls, and that of present France to 35,000,000; that, consequently, its population is increased onefourth, and most probably its riches and produce in a still higher. proportion. If, as it is generally reckoned, the population of Great Britain, Spain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria, amount to 14-107-21-and 24 millions inhabitants, that of France is double to and one half more than that of Great-Britain, treble to and one half more than that of Spain, five fold to that of Prussia: it exceeds that of Austria by two thirds, and that of Russia by one half. Since France has united this immense superiority in population to so many other advantages which she derives from the concentration of her territory, from the strength of her frontiers, from her situation between the two seas, from the possession of so many navigable rivers, in short from the abundance and variety of her productions, what is become of the political balance of Europe? But if in the same scale with France are added, Switzerland, Holland, Spain, Southern Italy, and the adjacent parts of Germany, which every one of them are subjected and tri

butary