franc, or about one fifth of a dollar per day, for three hundred days in the year, the sacrifice that each conscript thus makes is not less than thirty dollars per annum, being about twelve millions of dollars for the whole army of 400,000 men, and its effect is to relieve the possessors of property from paying taxes to such extent as would be required to obtain, by.voluntary enlistment, the number of men deemed necessary for the public service. Such a system is entirely inconsistent with security of person.

During the time that they remain in the service they cannot contract marriage without permission of the colonel of the regiment, which is not easily obtained. The number of married men is stated to be as one to twenty-four of the unmarried.

Notwithstanding the vast force thus kept on foot, security is not obtained. France has exhibited a constant succession of riots and revolutions, requiring the intervention of the military power, and resulting chiefly from the fact that so large a body of men, not having acquired habits of regular industry, are annually let loose on society either to starve or to cut their way to property with their swords.

*

The existence of the corvée was totally inconsistent with security of person. The repairs of the roads were executed by men who were impressed into the service, and they were not even allowed the smallest pay. The rich man could avoid the tax but the poor one could not. A vast amount of labour was expended without result, and the roads of France are still, with the exception of the great roads, almost impassable during the winter.

* The value of labour thus applied was estimated by M. Turgot at not less than forty millions of livres, or eight millions of dollars, per annum.

"In some provinces three days' labour was required, in others six, and in some ten. No remuneration either in money or in wages, was given in return; and what was as bad, the task was unequally proportioned, falling in some districts only on the population within a short distance of the line of road, and in others the population residing at a much greater distance being called upon to contribute their gratuitous labours. A rich man and a poor man, an opulent parish and one in which there was much poverty, were called upon without distinction to leave private occupations, and attend at great inconvenience on the roads. Coercive means were necessary, in order to obtain from every one his due share of labour: but these also varied as judgment or caprice dictated; in some cases penalties being inflicted, and in others the offending parties being imprisoned."

The corvée was abolished by the revolution, which substituted the conscription in its stead. The first was a tax of a few days in the year-the last is a tax of six years, taken at the most important period of life; the first fell upon only a small portion of the community-the last requires the service of almost every able-bodied man who attains the proper age. Under the first, labour was directed to the improvement of communications with a view to increase the power of production; under the last, it is too frequently directed to the plunder of their neighbours, thereby lessening their power of producing commodities to offer in exchange. Under the first there was some tendency to maintain habits of industry; under the last there is a direct tendency to the production of habits of idleness and a love of plunder, totally inconsistent with the maintenance of security.

That insecurity which results from misconception of rights and duties on the part of the labouring population, has been great in France. Strikes and turn-outs have occurred in various parts of France; but that of Lyons, in 1834, was the most remarkable. After very serious riots had taken place, the first turn-out was suppressed, and many of the mutuallistes were arrested. When their trial came on in April, new disturbances broke out, which continued for nearly ten days, and were not suppressed until about two thousand of the regular troops, and from six thousand to eight thousand of the rioters were killed or wounded. When compared with the riots of Lyons, the disturbances of England, from turn-outs, sink into insignificance, and those of the United States appear scarcely worthy of a passing notice. A recent French writer says, and with great truth, that

"It would be at once too long and too painful a task to record all the popular tumults, all the crimes against property, all the violations of the security of person, of which Paris, and nearly all parts of the kingdom, have been the theatre since the revolution of 1830, almost all of which have been produced by the misery of the people, or the hatred of ignorant and immoral masses towards all that reminds them of superiority of rank or of fortune-towards all religion and all the barriers destined to preserve social order.”

That insecurity which results from the indisposition to grant to

* Villeneuve, Economie Politique Chretienne, t. II. p. 29.

others the exercise of the same rights that they would claim for themselves, is forcibly exhibited in the cases of the inventors of machinery. The workmen are unwilling that others should apply their powers more productively than themselves, and they oppose the introduction of improvements and persecute those who devise them. The inventor of the Jacquard machinery was in imminent danger of assassination, and was denounced as an object of universal hatred. The inventors of the bar-loom were persecuted until they were reduced to the extremity of misery, and one of them died recently in a hospital. Their machines are now in universal use, and constitute the great protection of the French silk weavers against their competitors.

Freedom of action could not exist to any great extent in France previously to the revolution. A very considerable portion of the people were either in a state of slavery, or too poor to enable themselves to benefit by freedom if they possessed it. The changes of the last half century have tended to increase the means of the people, but they are still restrained from exercising the power of locomotion. The man who desires to travel from Paris to Lyons must give notice to the police, and receive permission so to do, and the gendarmerie are required to arrest every person travelling in the interior of the kingdom without a passport, or with passports not in accordance with the law. Here the right of locomotion is restricted on the ground that it is necessary for the detection of rogues and sharpers, whereas its only effect is to compel the poor and honest to turn rogues that they may indemnify themselves for the injury inflicted upon them by restraints.* If a foreigner desire to enter France, he

"Instead of being "the terror of evil doers," and the protection and safety of the respectable portion of the community, the rigours of the police system of France press equally upon all. The same means which are resorted to for the detection of the guilty, the laws which prevent their quitting the district in which they may be residing without permission of the civil authorities, are enforced against the honest, the best known and most respectable bourgeois; the most noted merchant, the most influencial landed proprietor, have to submit, have to pass through the same ordeal as the thief and the blackguard. '—Murray's Summer in the Pyrenees, Vol. I. p. 195.

The experience of every traveller in France must be in accordance with that of Mr. Murray, who says, "I had been desired by the gendarme, who took my passport when I arrived, to call the next day at the Bureau of Police, and receive it. I went there but could hear nothing regarding it, and was bid to go to the

must apply to the consul, or to the minister, stating the precise route by which he proposes to travel, from which he must not deviate.

Before the revolution, the restraints upon the employment of time and talent were carried to such an extent that it was even held that the right to labour was a royal privilege which the sovereign might sell and which his subjects must purchase.* Many of the restrictions of that time have been abolished, but even now an individual is not permitted to apply his talent in the way that he may deem most advantageous to him. If he wish to exercise any trade or profession, he must purchase a patente, and when he applies for it, he may be told that the number is full and that no more can be granted. Thus, if he desire to be a printer in Paris, he cannot obtain permission, if the existing number be not under eighty. The government thus undertakes to judge how many bakers and butchers, how many printers and booksellers are required.

If he desire to apply himself to the manufacture and sale of salt, he is told it is a government monopoly, and on turning to Almanach Royale, he finds a "Conseil d'Administration," with a great body of "directeurs and sous directeurs," and a host of subordinate officers, employed in the business of retailing salt for the benefit of the treasury of a nation of 32,000,000. If he desire to engage in the culture or manufacture of tobacco, the result is the same. If he understand the management of horses and desire to keep them for hire on the roads, he finds that the transport of passengers is a monopoly. If he desire to give instruction, he cannot do it unless he can obtain authority from the University of Paris so to do. He is thus forbidden to employ his time or his talents in those pursuits most likely to yield him a liberal reward.

Freedom of opinion, in matters of religion, was greatly restrained, but at present all sects are equal in the eye of the law. Nevertheless, there remains in parts of the country much of the spirit which prompted to the persecution of the Albigensis. In

Passport Office, in the Prefecture, which I did, but found it shut, and was desired to call again at one, when it would be ready. * According to appointment I presented myself at the Bureau des Passports, and was told by the officer to call again at 4 o'clock."-Ibid. p. 33.

* Euvres de Turgot, t. VIII. p. 337.

+ So decided by the Court of Cassation, 1834.

1815, great excitement was produced in portions of the south of France by the difficulties between the Catholics and Protes→ tants, and a number of the latter were killed.

Freedom in the publication of opinions in regard to affairs of government had no existence before the revolution. During the revolution, and under Napoleon, there was none. Since the restoration it has been repeatedly subjected to a censorship. After the revolution of 1830, it was supposed that it would be permitted, but within five years there were four hundred and eleven suits instituted by the government against the conductors of the public press, and the punishments decreed amounted, in the whole, to more than sixty years' imprisonment, accompanied with fines exceeding 300,000 francs.*

Even the importation of newspapers offensive to the authorities is forbidden, and a very recent instance shows that a traveller who has in his possession journals that are obnoxious, is liable to be sent out of the country.†

The right of suffrage is limited to so small a number of persons, that there can exist but little opportunity for disturbances among them, and the control exercised by the government over them renders it at all times secure of a sufficient majority. A very large proportion of the electors hold office at the pleasure of the king, and disobedience of orders would be followed by deprivation of place. There is, therefore, in France, little security for free expression of opinion in relation to the conduct of government.‡

In 1830, there were sentenced to one year's imprisonment, or more, 10,261 individuals, being one in every 3,118 inhabitants.§ Of these 12 per cent., being one in 25,560 inhabitants,|| had committed crimes against the person. The reader has

* H. L. Bulwer, Monarchy of the Middle Classes, Vol. I. p. 95.

+ Examiner, 1837, p. 499.

In Great Britain and the United States, the holders of office are generally expected to act with the party under which office is held, but the proportion of office holders to voters is in the first but small, and in the last so small as scarcely to be worth notice. § De Beaumont and De Tocqueville, p. 272.

The reader is referred to the work of Messrs. De Beaumont and De Tocqueville (Appendix, Note 18,) for some ingenious reasoning, tending to prove that the amount of crime in the United States is greater than in France. It is ingenious but not sound. Throughout the world, he will find, that where industry is most productive person and property are most secure. In France it is exceedingly unproductive. De Beaumont and De Tocqueville, p. 266.