ease, and undisturbed, thirty millions of people, to whom their past crimes are known, and who have every reason to apprehend their future wickedness.

This astonishing resignation (if I can call it so, and if it does not deserve a worse name) is so much the more incomprehensible, as the poverty of the higher and the middling classes is as great as the misery of the people; and except those employed under Buonaparte, and some few upstart contractors, or army commissaries, the greatest privations must be submitted to, in order to pay the enormous taxes, and make a decent appearance.

I know families of five, six, and seven persons, who formerly were wealthy, and now have for a scanty subsistence, an income of twelve or eighteen hundred livres, 50l. or 751. per year, with which they are obliged to live as they can; being deprived of all the resource that elsewhere labour offers to the industrious, and all the succours compassion bestows on the necessitous. You know that here all trade, and all commerce, are at a stand or destroyed; and the hearts of our modern rich, are as unfeeling as their manners are vulgar and brutal.

A family of ci-devant nobles of my acquaintance, possessing once a revenue of one hundred and fifty thousand livres, (6,000l.) subsist now on fifteen hundred livres (621.) per year; and this sum must support six individuals, the father and mother, with four children! It does so indeed, by an arrangement of only one poor meal in the day; a dinner four times, and a supper three times in the week. They endure their distress with tolerable cheerfulness, though in the same street where they occupy the garrets of a house, resides in an elegant hotel, a man who was once their groom, but is now a tribune, and has, within these last twelve years, as a conventional deputy, amassed, in his mission to Brabant and Flanders, twelve millions of livres (50,000l.) He has kindly let my friend understand that his youngest daughter might be received as a chambermaid to his wife; being informed that she has got a good education.-All the four daughters are good musicians, good drawers, and very able at their needles. By their talents they supported their parents and themselves, during their emigration in Germany; but here they are of but little use or advantage. Those upstarts who want instruction,

or works of this sort, apply to the first most renowned and fashionable masters or mistresses, while others, and those the greatest number, cannot afford even to pay the inferior ones, and the most cheap. This family is one of the many that regret having returned from their emigration. But you may ask, why do they not go back again to Germany? First, it would expose them to suspicion, and perhaps to ruin, were they to demand passes; and if this danger or difficulty were removed, they have no money for such a long journey.

But this sort of penury and wretchedness is also common with the families of the former wealthy merchants and tradesmen. Paper money, a maximum, and requisitions, have reduced those that did not share in the crimes and pillage of the revolution, as much as the proscribed nobility. And, contradictory as it may seem, the number of persons employed in commercial speculations has more than tripled since we experienced a general stagnation of trade, the consequence of war, the want of capitals, protection, encouragement, and confidence; but one of the magazines of 1789, contained more goods and merchandise than twenty modern magazines put together. The expenses of these new merchants are, however, much greater than sixteen years ago, the profit less, and the credit still less than the profit. Hence numerous bankruptcies, frauds, swindling, forgeries, and other evils of immorality, extravagance, and misery. The fair and honest dealers suffer most from the intrusion of these infamous speculators, who, expecting, like other vile men wallowing in wealth, under their eyes, to make rapid fortunes, and to escape detection as well as punishment, commit crimes to soothe disappointment. Nothing is done but for ready money, and even bankers' bills, or bills accepted by bankers, are not taken in payment, before the signatures are avowed by the parties concerned. You can easily 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 land-holders are better off; but they also complain of the heavy taxes, and the 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 govern

ment, 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 Buonaparte, 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.

MY LORD,

LETTER LXVII.

Paris, October, 1805.

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 prytanées, 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 too little been 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 twenty-eight thousand young men, accustomed to do military duty from their youth, must finally become the master of all other or rival powers, and dispose at leisure of empires, kingdoms principalities, and republics.-NOTHING CAN SAVE THEM, BUT THE ADOPTION OF

SIMILAR MEASURES FOR THEIR PRESERVATION AS HAVE BEEN ADOPTED FOR THEIR SUBJUGATION.

When l'Etat Militaire for year 13 (a work containing the offcial statement of our military forces) was presented to Buonaparte by Berthier, the latter said, "Sire, I lay before your Majesty the book of the destiny of the world, which your hands direct as the sovereign guide of the armies of your empire." This compliment is a truth, and therefore no flattery. It might as justly have been addressed to a Moreau, a Macdonald, a Lecourbe, or to any other generals, as to Buonaparte, because a superior number of well disciplined troops, let them be well or indifferently commanded, will defeat those inferior in number. Three to one would even overpower an army of giants. Add to it the unity of plans, of dispositions, and of execution, which Buonaparte enjoys exclusively over such a great number of troops, while ten, or perhaps fifty, will direct or contradict every movement of his opponents. I tremble when I meditate on Berthier's assertion ; may I never live to see it realized, and to see all hitherto independent nations, prostrated, acknowledge that Buonaparte and destiny are the same, and the same distributer of good and evil!

One of the bad consequences of this our military education of youth is a total absence of all religious and moral lessons. Arnaud had, last August, the courage to complain of this infamous neglect in the National Institute: "The youth," said he, “ receive no other instruction, but lessons to march, to fire, to bow, tó dance, to sit, to lie, and to impose with a good grace. I do not ask for Spartans or Romans, but we want Athenians, and our schools are only forming Sybarites." Within twenty-four hours afterwards, Arnaud was visited by a police agent, accompanied by two gens-d'armes; and an order signed by Fouché, which condemned him to reside at Orleans, and not to return to Paris, without the permission of the government; a punishment regarded here as very moderate, for such an indiscreet zeal.

A schoolmaster at Auteuil, near this capital, of the name of Gouron, had a private seminary, organized upon the footing of our former colleges. In some few months he was offered more pupils than he well could attend to, and his house shortly became very fashionable, even for our upstarts, who sent their children there in preference. He was ordered before Fouché last Christmas, and commanded to change the hours hitherto employed in teaching religion and morals to military exercise and instruction,

as both more necessary and more salubrious for French youth. Having replied that such an alteration was contrary to his plan, and agreement with the parents of his scholars, the minister stopped him short, by telling him that he must obey what had been prescribed by government, or stand the consequences of his refractory spirit. Having consulted his friends and patrons, he divided the hours, and gave half of the time usually allotted to religion or morality to the study of military exercise; his pupils, however, remained obstinate, broke the drum, and tore and burnt the colours he had bought. As this was not his fault, he did not expect any disturbance, particularly after having reported to the police both his obedience and the unforeseen result. But, last March, his house was suddenly surrounded in the night by gensd'armes, and some police agents entered it. All the boys were ordered to dress, and to pack up their effects, and to follow the gens-d'armes to several other schools, where the government had placed them, and of which their parents would be informed. Gouron, his wife, four ushers, and six servants, were all arrested and carried to the police office, where Fouché, after reproaching them for their fanatical behaviour, as he termed it, told them, as they were so fond of teaching religious and moral duties, a suitable situation had been provided for them in Cayenne; where the negroes stood sadly in need of their early arrival, for which reason they would all set out on that very morning for Rochefort. When Gouron asked what was become of his property, furniture, &c. he 'was told that his house was intended by government for a preparatory school, and would, with its contents, be purchased, and the amount paid him in lands in Cayenne. It is not necessary to say that this example of Imperial justice, had the desired effect on all other refractory private schoolmasters.

The parents of Gouron's pupils, have, with a severe repri mand, been informed where their sons had been placed, and where they would be educated in a manner agreeable to the Emperor, who recommended them not to remove them, without a previous notice to the police. A hatter of the name of Maille, however, ordered his son home, because he had been sent to a dearer school than the former. In his turn he was carried before the police, and after a short examination of a quarter of an hour, was permitted with his wife and two children, to join their