The Armed Forces.
I.
Military force declines. - How the army is recruited. - How the soldier is treated.
Against universal sedition where is force? - The measures and dispositions which govern the 150,000 men who maintain order are the same as those ruling the 26 millions people subject to it. We find here the same abuses, disaffection, and other causes for the dissolution of the nation which, in their turn, will dissolve the army.
Of the 90 millions of pay[1] which the army annually costs the treasury, 46 millions are for officers and only 44 millions for soldiers, and we are already aware that a new ordinance reserves ranks of all kinds for verified nobles. In no direction is this inequality, against which public opinion rebels so vigorously, more apparent. On the one hand, authority, honors, money, leisure, good-living, social enjoyments, and plays in private, for the minority. On the other hand, for the majority, subjection, dejection, fatigue, a forced or betrayed enlistment, no hope of promotion, pay at six sous a day,[2] a narrow cot for two, bread fit for dogs, and, for several years, kicks like those bestowed on a dog.[3] On the one hand, a nobility of high estate, and, on the other, the lowest of the populace. One might say that this was specially designed for contrast and to intensify irritation. "The insignificant pay of the soldier," says an economist, "the way in which he is dressed, lodged and fed, his utter dependence, would render it cruelty to take any other than a man of the lower class."[4] 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,"[5] 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 one day from fifty to one hundred volunteers, the young men cut off their thumbs to escape the draft.[6] To this scum of society is added the sweepings of the depots and of the jails. Among the vagabonds that fill these, after winnowing out those able to make their families known or to obtain sponsors, "there are none left," says an intendant, "but those who are entirely unknown or dangerous, out of which those regarded as the least vicious are selected and efforts are made to place these in the army."[7] - The last of its affluents is the half-forced, half-voluntary enlistment by which the ranks are for the most part filled, the human waste of large towns, like adventurers, discharged apprentices, young reprobates turned out of doors, and people without homes or steady occupation. The recruiting agent who is paid so much a head for his recruits and so much an inch on their stature above five feet, "holds his court in a tavern, treating everyone" promoting his merchandise:
"Come, boys, soup, fish, meat and salad is what you get to eat in the regiment;" nothing else, "I don't deceive you - pie and Arbois wine are the extras."[8]
He pours the wine, pays the bill and, if need be, yields his mistress. "After a few days debauchery, the young libertine, with no money to pay his debts, is obliged to sell himself, while the laborer, transformed into soldier, begins to drill under the lash." - Strange recruits these, for the protection of society, all selected from the class which will attack it, down-trodden peasants, imprisoned vagabonds, social outcasts, poor fellows in debt, disheartened, excited and easily tempted, who, according to circumstances, become at one time rioters, and at another soldiers. - Which lot is preferable?
The bread the soldier eats is not more abundant than that of the prisoner, while poorer in quality; for the bran is taken out of the bread which the locked-up vagabond eats, and left in the bread which is eaten by the soldier who locks him up[9]. In this state of things the soldier 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 Revolution[10] "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 the late reign, grievous words are heard. At a banquet given by a prince of the blood,[11] with a table set for a hundred guests under an immense tent and served by grenadiers, the odor these diffused upset the prince's delicate nose. "These worthy fellows," said he, a little too loud, "smell strong of the stocking." One of the grenadiers bluntly responded, "Because we haven't got any," which "was followed by profound silence." During the ensuring years irritation smolders and augments; the soldiers of Rochambeau have fought side by side with the free militia of America, and they keep this in mind. In 1788,[12]