The Ancient Regime

ary forc

lines.-How the arm

dier is

ntain order are the same as those ruling the 26 millions people subject to it. We find here the same abuses,

ed, lodged and fed, his utter dependence, would render it cruelty to take any other than a man of the lower class."5404 Indeed, he is sought for only in the lowest layers of society. Not only are nobles and the bourgeoisie exempt from conscription, but again the employees of the administration, of the fermes and of public works, "all gamekeepers and forest-rangers, the hired domestics and valets of ecclesiastics, of communities, of religious establishments, of the gentry and of nobles,"5405 and even of the bourgeoisie living in grand style, and still better, the sons of cultivators in easy circumstances, and, in general, all possessing influence or any species of protector. There remains, accordingly, for the militia none but the poorest class, and they do not willingly enter it. On the contrary, the service is hateful to them; they conceal themselves in the forests where they have to be pursued by armed men: in a certain canton which, three years later, furnishes in on

get to eat in the regiment;" nothing else, "I don't

ought not to mediate on his lot, and yet this is just what his officers incite him to do. They also have become politicians and fault-finders. Some years before the Revolution5410 "disputes occurred" in the army, "discussions and complaints, and, the new ideas fermenting in their heads, a correspondence was established between two regiments. Written information was obtained from Paris, authorized by the Minister of War, which cost, I believe, twelve louis per annum. It soon took a philosophic turn, embracing dissertations, criticisms of the ministry, and of the government, desirable changes and, therefore, the more diffused." Sergeants like Hoche, and fencing-masters like Augereau, certainly often read this news, carelessly left lying on the tables, and commented on it during the evening in their soldier quarters. Discontent is of ancient date, and already, at the end of th

l organizatio

tion is dissolved.-

the provinces.-A

Except in Vendée, I find no place, nor any class, in which a good many men, having confidence in a few men, are able, in the hour of danger, to rally around these and form a compact body. Neither provincial nor municipal patriotism any longer exists. The inferior clergy are hostile to the prelates, the gentry of the province to the nobility of the court, the vassal to the seignior, the peasant to the townsman, the urban population to the municipal oligarchy, corporation to corporation, parish to parish, neighbor to neighbor. All are separated by their privileges and their jealousies, by the consciousness of having been imposed on, or frustrated, for the advantage of another. The jour

onsequently, caring for any interest but his own. Nowhere is there any sign of an interest in common. Towns and villages maintain no more relation with each othe

No one knows where to turn to obtain a guide. "A man willing to be responsible for the smallest district cannot be found; and, more than this, one man able to answer for another man5416." Utter and irremediable disorder is at hand. The Utopia of the theorists has been accomplished, the savage condition has recommenced. Individuals now stand in by themselves; everyone reverting back to his original feebleness, while his possessions and his life are at the mercy of the first band that comes along. He has nothing within him to control him but the sheep-like habit of being led, of awaiting an impulsion, of turning towards the accustomed center, towards Paris, from which his orders have always arrived. Arthur Young5417 is struck with this mechanical movement. Political ignorance and docility are everywhere complete.

ction of t

current.-The peop

the sole surviving

cient

l districts, the envious advocate and theorist. This one insists, in the report, on a statement being made in writing and at length of his local and personal grievances, his protest against taxes and deductions, his request

ts deputies among men of the robe, would secure the might and the right to take the lead, to abolish nobility and to cancel all its rights and privileges; that nobility would no longer be hereditary; that all citizens, in deserving it, would be entitled to claim it; that, if the people elected them, they would have accorded to the Third-Estate whatever it desired, because the curates, belonging to the Third-Estate, having agreed to separate from the higher clergy and unite with them

ent of voting, placed filled-in ballots in the hands of the voters, and put in their way, on reaching the taverns, ever

. In those which were notified the lawyers, attorneys and notaries of the small neighboring towns have made up the list of grievances themselves with

Revolution is to take: The man of the people is indoctrinated by the

are on the increase; I have constant complaints of the abuse which the national militia make of their arms, and which I cannot remedy." According to an utterance in the National Assembly the police imagines that it is to be disbanded and has therefore no desire to make enemies for itself. "The baillages are as timid as the police-forces; I send them business constantly, but no culprit is punished."-"No nation enjoys liberty so indefinite and so disastrous to honest people; it is absolutely against the rights of man to see oneself constantly liable to have his throat cut by the scoundrels who daily confound liberty with license."-In other words, the passions utilize the theory to justify themselves, and the theory appeal to passion to be carried out. For example, near Liancourt, the Duc de Larochefoucauld possessed an uncultivated area of ground; "at the commencement of the revolution,5424 the poor of the town declare that, as they form a part of the nation, untilled lands being national property, this belongs to them," and "wit

(re

nistration des Finan

(re

deniers of which 2 sous and 6 deniers would have to b

(re

. "The soldier's hardships make one's heart bleed; he passes his days in a state

(re

ueville,

(re

nationale

(re

; this extensive desertion is attributed to the new drill which fatigues and disheartens the soldier, and especially the veterans."-Volt

(re

Letter of M. de Bertrand, intend

(re

ier, X

(re

which some bran is left, such bran is not only good for the

(re

aublan

(re

ur, I, 2

(re

, "Mémoir

(re

pole, Septem

(re

I." (Revue des Cours littéraires, IV, 743).-Albert Babeau

(re

cquevil

(re

. (The word

(re

n France, I

(re

ought, between 1906 and 1909 in Paris, the means and ways wi

(re

t, I. 11

(re

ates-General, vol. XIII, p. 405. (Letter of the Marquis de

(re

Letter from the intendant o

(re

ng the creation of an elite party of professional revolutionaries to hasten this end, and by arguing for the d

(re

Langeron, military commandant at Besan?on, Octobe

(re

Young,