poor compensation for so heavy a
burden.

Of course, in 1789, he foresaw nothing like that; he was optimistic,
pacific, liberal, humanitarian; he knew nothing of Europe nor of
history, nothing of the past nor of the present. When the Constituent
Assembly constituted him a sovereign, he let things go on; he did not
know what he engaged to do, he had no idea of having allowed such a
heavy claim against him. But, in signing the social contract, he made
himself responsible; in 1793, the note came due and the Convention
collected it.[3263] Then comes Napoleon who put things in order.
Henceforth, every male, able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no
more exemptions in the way of military service:[3264] all young men who
had reached the required age drew lots in the conscription and set out
in turn according to the order fixed by their drafted number.[3265] But
Napoleon is an intelligent creditor; he knows that this debt is "most
frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are real,
living men and therefore different in kind, that the head of the State
should keep these differences in mind, that is to say their condition,
their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that, not only
in their private interest, but again in the interest of the public,
not merely through prudence but also through equity, all should not be
indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to the same
manual labor, to the same prolonged and indefinite servitude of soul and
body. Already, under the Directory, the law had exempted young married
men and widowers or divorced persons who were fathers.[3266] Napoleon
also exempts the conscript who has a brother in the active army, the
only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans, the son of a father
seventy-one years old dependent on his labor, all of whom are family
supports. He joins with these all young men who enlist in one of his
civil militias, in his ecclesiastical militia or in his university
militia, pupils of the Ecole Normale, ignorantin brothers, seminarians
for the priesthood, on condition that they shall engage to do service
in their vocation and do it effectively, some for ten years, others
for life, subject to a discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid, as
military discipline.[3267] Finally, he sanctions or institutes volunteer
substitutes, through private agreement between a conscript and the
able-bodied, certified volunteer substitute for