sily conceive what confusion, what expenses, and
what; loss of time these precautions must occasion; but the numerous
forgeries and fabrications have made them absolutely necessary.

The farmers and landholders are better off, but they also complain of the
heavy taxes, and low price paid for what they bring to the market, which
frequently, for want of ready money, remains long unsold. They take
nothing but cash in payment; for, notwithstanding the endeavours of our
Government, the notes of the Bank of France have never been in
circulation among them. They have also been subject to losses by the
fluctuation of paper money, by extortions, requisitions, and by the
maximum. In this class of my countrymen remains still some little
national spirit and some independence of character; but these are far
from being favourable to Bonaparte, or to the Imperial Government, which
the yearly increase of taxes, and, above all, the conscription, have
rendered extremely odious. You may judge of the great difference in the
taxation of lands and landed property now and under our Kings, when I
inform you that a friend of mine, who, in 1792, possessed, in one of the
Western Departments, twenty-one farms, paid less in contribution for them
all than he does now for the three farms he has recovered from the wreck
of his fortune.

LETTER XXVII.

PARIS, October, 1805.

MY LORD:--In a military empire, ruled by a military despot, it is a
necessary policy that the education of youth should also be military. In
all our public schools or prytanees, a boy, from the moment of entering,
is registered in a company, and regularly drilled, exercised, and
reviewed, punished for neglect or fault according to martial law, and
advanced if displaying genius or application. All our private schools
that wish for the protection of Government are forced to submit to the
same military rules, and, therefore, most of our conscripts, so far from
being recruits, are fit for any service as soon as put into requisition.
The fatal effects to the independence of Europe to be dreaded from this
sole innovation, I apprehend, have been too little considered by other
nations. A great Power, that can, without obstacle, and with but little
expense, in four weeks increase its disposable military force from one
hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty thousand young men,
accustomed to military duty from their youth, must finally become the
master of all other or rival P