" The conscription having spared the married, all the young men married at the age of sixteen. The number of children in the commune is double and triple what it was formerly."[130] Sauzay, X., 471. (Speech by Representative Biot, Aug.29, 1799.)[131] Albert Babeau, II., 466. (Letter of Milany, July 1, 1798, and report by Pout, Messidor, year VI.)[132] Schmidt, III., 374. (Reports on the situation of the department of the Seine, Ventose, year VII.) - Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires,"October 22, 1799. "The column of militia sets out to-day; there are no more than thirty persons in it, and these again are all paid or not paid clerks, attachés of the Republic, all these belonging to the department, to the director of domains, in fine, all the bureaus."[133] Schmidt, III., 374. (Reports on the situation of the department of the Seine, Ventose, year VII.) - Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires,"October 22, 1799. "The column of militia sets out to-day; there are no more than thirty persons in it, and these again are all paid or not paid clerks, attachés of the Republic, all these belonging to the department, to the director of domains, in fine, all the bureaus."[134] M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," II., 162. (Letter of July 22, 1799.) "The other day, at the mass in St. Roch, a man by the side of our dear Grammont, said fervently: "My God, have mercy on us, exterminate the nation !" This, indeed, simply meant: "My God, deliver us from the Convention system!"[135] Schmidt,298, 352, 377, 451, etc. (Ventose, Frimaire and Fructidor, year VII.)[136] Ibid., III. (Reports of Prairial, year III., department of the Seine.)[137] M. de Lafayette, "Memoires," II., 164. (Letter of July 14, 1799.) - De Tocqueville, "(?uvres complètes," V., 270. (Testinony of a contemporary.) - Sauzay, X., 470, 471. (Speeches by Briot and de Echassériaux): "I cannot understand the frightful state of torpor into which minds have fallen; people have come to believing nothing, to feeling nothing, to doing nothing . . . . The great nation which had overcome all and created everything around her, seems to exist only in the armies and in a few generous souls."[138] Lord Malmesbury's "Diary," (November 5, 1796). "At Randonneau's, who published all the acts and laws . . . . Very talkative, but clever . . . . Ten thousand laws published since 1789, but only seventy enforced."- Ludovic Sciout, IV., 770. (Reports of year VII.) In Puy de Dome: "Out of two hundred and eighty-six communes there are two hundred in which the agents have committed every species of forgery on the registers of the Etat-Civil and in the copying of its acts, to clear individuals of military service. Here, young men of twenty and twenty-five are married to women of seventy-two and eighty years of age, and even to those who have long been dead; then, an extract from the death register clears a man who is alive and well." - " Forged contracts are presented to avoid military service, young soldiers are married to women of eighty; one woman, thanks to a series of forgeries, is found married to eight or ten conscripts." (Letter of an officer of the Gendarmerie to Roanne, Ventose 9, year VIII.)[139] Words of De Tocqueville. - "Le Duc de Broglie," by M. Guizot, p. 16. (Words of the Duc de Broglie.) "Those who were not living at this time could form no idea of the profound discouragement into which France had fallen in the interval between Fructidor 18 and Brumaire 18."[140] Buchez et Roux, XXXVIII., 480. (Message of the Directory, Floréal 13, year IV., and report of Bailleul, Floreal 18.) "When an election of deputies presented a bad result to us we thought it our duty to propose setting it aside. . . . It will be said that your project is a veritable proscription." - "Not more so than the 19 of Fructidor." - Cf. for dismissals in the provinces, Sauzay, V., ch.
86. - Albert Babeau, II., 486. During the four years the Directory lasted the municipal council of Troyes was renewed seven times, in whole or in part.
[141] Buchez et Roux, XXXIX., 61. (Session of Prairial 30, year VII.)-Sauzay, X., ch. 87. - Léouzon-Leduc, "Correspondence Diplomatique avec la cour de Suede," P. 203. - (Letters of July 1, 711, 19 August 4; September 23, 1799.) "The purification of functionaries, so much talked about now, has absolutely no other end in view but the removal of the partisans of one faction in order to substitute those of another faction without any regard to moral character. . . . It is this choice of persons without probity, justice or any principles of honesty whatever for the most important offices which makes one tremble, and especially, at this moment, all who are really attached to their country." - "The opening of the clubs must, in every relation, be deemed a disastrous circumstance. . . .