of the recruits; in fact, very few could be
obtained except among men more or less disqualified for civil and
domestic life, incapable of spontaneous discipline and of steady labor,
adventurers and outcasts, half-savage or half-blackguard, some of them
sons of respectable parents thrown into the army in an angry fit, and
others again, regular vagabonds picked up in beggars' haunts, mostly
stray workmen and loafers, in short, "the most debauched, the most
hot-brained, the most turbulent people in an ardent, turbulent and
somewhat debauched community."[3258] In this way, the anti-social class
was utilized for the public good. Let the reader imagine an ill-kept
domain overrun by a lot of stray curs that might prove dangerous: they
are enticed and caught; a collar, with a chain attached to it, is put on
their necks and they become good watch-dogs.--In the second place, this
institution preserved to the subject the first and most precious of all
liberties, the full possession and the unrestricted management of one's
own person, the complete mastery of body and being. This was assured to
him, guaranteed to him against the encroachments of the State. It was
better guaranteed than by the wisest constitution, for the institution
was a recognized custom accepted by everybody. In other words, it was a
tacit, immemorial convention,[3259] between the subject and the State,
proclaiming that, if the State had a right to draw on purses it had
no right to draft persons: in reality and in fact, the King, in his
principal function, was merely a contractor like any other; he undertook
natural defense and public security the same as others undertook
cleaning the streets or the maintenance of a dike. It was his business
to hire military workmen as they hired their civil workmen, by
mutual agreement, at an understood price and at current market rates.
Accordingly, the sub-contractors with whom he treated, the colonel and
captains of each regiment, were subject as he was to the law of supply
and demand; he allowed them so much for each recruit,[3260] to replace
those dropped out, and they agreed to keep their companies full. They
were obliged to procure men at their own risk and at their own expense,
while the recruiting-agent whom they dispatched with a bag of money
among the taverns, enlisted artillerymen, horsemen or foot-soldiers,
after bargaining with them, the same as one would hire men to sweep or
pave the street and to clean the sewers.