--What it became after him.--The law of 1818.

One tax remains, and the last, that by which the State takes, no longer
money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and
for the best years of his life, namely military service. It is the
Revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly, it was
light, for, in principle, it was voluntary. The militia, alone, was
raised by force, and, in general, among the country people; the
peasants furnished men for it by casting lots.[3254] But it was simply
a supplement to the active army, a territorial and provincial reserve,
a distinct, sedentary body of reinforcements and of inferior rank which,
except in case of war, never marched; it turned out but nine days of the
year, and, after 1778, never turned out again. In 1789, it comprised
in all 72,260 men, and for eleven years their names, inscribed on the
registers, alone constituted their presence in the ranks.[3255] There
were no other conscripts under the monarchy; in this matter, its
exactions were not great, ten times less than those of the Republic and
of the Empire, since both the Republic and the Empire, using the same
constraint, were to levy more than ten times the number of drafted men
or conscripts.[3256]

Alongside of this militia body, the entire army properly so called, the
"regular" troops were, under, the ancient Regime, all recruited by free
enlistment, not only the twenty-five foreign regiments, Swiss, Irish,
Germans, and Liegeois, but again the hundred and forty-five French
regiments, 177 000 men.[3257] The enlistment, indeed, was not free
enough; frequently, through the maneuvers of the recruiting-agent, it
was tainted with inveigling and surprises, and sometimes with fraud
or violence; but, owing to the remonstrances due to the prevailing
philanthropic spirit, these abuses had diminished; the law of 1788
had suppressed the most serious of them and, even with its abuses, the
institution had two great advantages.--The army, in the first place,
served as an issue: through it the social body purged itself of its bad
humors, of its overheated or vitiated blood. At this date, although the
profession of soldier was one of the lowest and least esteemed, a barren
career, without promotion and almost without escape, a recruit was
obtainable for about one hundred francs bounty and a "tip"; add to this
two or three days and nights of revel in the grog-shop, which indicates
the kind and quality