On the other hand, the new court, in order to
distinguish itself from the imperial court,
substituted the most offensive simplicity for the
useful pomp of Napoleon. The richest emigrants
imitated this pernicious example; and, as Napoleon
remarked, the luxury of the table was almost the
only kind, on which encouragement was not spared.
The result of this economical system was, that the
produce of our manufactories remained unemployed,
and industry was suddenly paralyzed.

Thus commerce, which had loudly called for peace,
was almost totally annihilated by it: and the
manufacturers, the mechanics, the merchants (those
of the sea-ports excepted), greatly regretted those
_happy_ times, when we were at war.

In fact, it must be admitted, that our industry was
indebted to the war, and to our conquests, for its
progress, and its prodigious increase. The war, by
depriving us of the products of the English
manufactories, had taught us, to manufacture for
ourselves. The continual prohibition of these
articles protected our rising manufactures from the
danger of competition; and allowed them to engage
with safety in the trials and expenses necessary
for equalling or surpassing in perfection foreign
manufactures. In all parts of the empire were seen
manufactories for spinning and weaving cotton; and
this branch of trade, almost unknown before,
employed three hundred thousand work people, and
produced goods to the value of more than two
hundred and fifty millions.

The other products of our industry equally received
improvements and extension; and France, in spite of
the conscription, reckoned in its numerous
workshops nearly twelve hundred thousand
workpeople.

If this flourishing state of our continental trade
were the effect of t