FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   >>   >|  
general, but particularly among those of his household troops. That they may not, however, be entirely deprived of the society of women, he allows five to each company, with the same salaries as the men, under the name of washerwomen. With a vain and fickle people, fond of shows and innovations, nothing in a military despotism has a greater political utility, gives greater satisfaction, and leaves behind a more useful terror and awe, than Bonaparte's grand military reviews. In the beginning of his consulate, they regularly occurred three times in the month; after his victory of Marengo, they were reduced to once in a fortnight, and since he has been proclaimed Emperor, to once only in the month. This ostentatious exhibition of usurped power is always closed with a diplomatic review of the representatives of lawful Princes, who introduce on those occasions their fellow-subjects to another subject, who successfully has seized, and continues to usurp, the authority of his own Sovereign. What an example for ambition! what a lesson to treachery! Besides the household troops, this capital and its vicinity have, for these three years past, never contained less than from fifteen to twenty thousand men of the regiments of the line, belonging to what is called the first military division of the Army of the Interior. These troops are selected from among the brigades that served under Bonaparte in Italy and Egypt with the greatest eclat, and constitute a kind of depot for recruiting his household troops with tried and trusty men. They are also regularly paid, and generally better accoutred than their comrades encamped on the coast, or quartered in Italy or Holland. But a standing army, upon which all revolutionary rulers can depend, and that always will continue their faithful support, unique in its sort and composition, exists in the bosom as well as in the extremities of this country. I mean, one hundred and twenty thousand invalids, mostly young men under thirty, forced by conscription against their will into the field, quartered and taken care of by our Government, and all possessed with the absurd prejudice that, as they have been maimed in fighting the battles of rebellion, the restoration of legitimate sovereignty would to them be an epoch of destruction, or at least of misery and want; and this prejudice is kept alive by emissaries employed on purpose to mislead them. Of these, eight thousand are lodged and pro
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

troops

 

thousand

 

household

 

military

 

twenty

 

greater

 

regularly

 

Bonaparte

 
quartered
 

prejudice


generally

 

trusty

 

accoutred

 

standing

 

Holland

 

misery

 

encamped

 
comrades
 

selected

 

brigades


served
 

lodged

 

Interior

 

constitute

 

emissaries

 

employed

 

mislead

 

purpose

 

greatest

 

recruiting


thirty

 

battles

 

invalids

 
hundred
 

division

 
rebellion
 

fighting

 

forced

 

Government

 

absurd


maimed

 
conscription
 
restoration
 
depend
 

continue

 

faithful

 
rulers
 

possessed

 

destruction

 

revolutionary