selves the
interest on their own capital. Estimating this capital at only eight
thousand francs at two and a half per cent., there is an annual interest
of two hundred francs to be paid. If, then, these two hundred francs,
instead of being subtracted from the gross product to be saved and
capitalized, are consumed, there is an annual deficit of two hundred
francs in the family assets; so that at the end of forty years these
good people, without suspecting it, will have eaten up their property
and become bankrupt!

This result seems ridiculous--it is a sad reality.

The conscription comes. What is the conscription? An act of property
exercised over families by the government without warning--a robbery
of men and money. The peasants do not like to part with their sons,--in
that I do not think them wrong. It is hard for a young man of twenty
to gain any thing by life in the barracks; unless he is depraved, he
detests it. You can generally judge of a soldier's morality by his
hatred of his uniform. Unfortunate wretches or worthless scamps,--such
is the make-up of the French army. This ought not to be the case,--but
so it is. Question a hundred thousand men, and not one will contradict
my assertion.

Our peasant, in redeeming his two conscripted sons, expends four
thousand francs, which he borrows for that purpose; the interest on
this, at five per cent., is two hundred francs;--a sum equal to that
referred to above. If, up to this time, the production of the family,
constantly balanced by its consumption, has been one thousand two
hundred francs, or two hundred francs per persons--in order to pay this
interest, either the six laborers must produce as much as seven, or must
consume as little as five.

Curtail consumption they cannot--how can they curtail necessity? To
produce more is impossible; they can work neither harder nor longer.
Shall they take a middle course, and consume five and a half while
producing six and a half? They would soon find that with the stomach
there is no compromise--that beyond a certain degree of abstinence it
is impossible to go--that strict necessity can be curtailed but little
without injury to the health; and, as for increasing the product,--there
comes a storm, a drought, an epizootic, and all the hopes of the farmer
are dashed. In short, the rent will not be paid, the interest will
accumulate, the farm will be seized, and the possessor ejected.

Thus a family, which lived in prosperity