Dutch and German provinces of his Empire the number of those who
evaded the clutches of the conscription was very large. In fact, the
number of "refractory conscripts" in the whole realm amounted to
40,000. Large bands of them ranged the woods of Brittany and La
Vendee, until mobile columns were sent to sweep them into the
barracks.

But in nearly the whole of France (Proper), Napoleon's name was still
an unfailing talisman, appealing as it did to the two strongest
instincts of the Celt, the clinging to the soil and the passion for
heroic enterprise. Thus it came about that the peasantry gave up their
sons to be "food for cannon" with the same docility that was shown by
soldiers who sank death-stricken into a snowy bed with no word of
reproach to the author of their miseries. A like obsequiousness was
shown by the officials and legislators of France, who meekly listened
to the Emperor's reproaches for their weakness in the Malet affair,
and heard with mild surprise his denunciation against republican
idealogy--_the cloudy metaphysics to which all the misfortunes of our
fair France may be attributed_. No tongue dared to utter the retort
which must have fermented in every brain.[281]

But his explanations and appeals did not satisfy every Frenchman. Many
were appalled at the frightful drain on the nation's strength. They
asked in private how the deficit of 1812 and the further expenses of
1813 were to be met, even if he allotted the communal domains to the
service of the State. They pointed to allies ruined or lost; to Spain,
where Joseph's throne still tottered from the shock of Salamanca; to
Poland, lying mangled at the feet of the Muscovites; to Italy,
desolated by the loss of her bravest sons; to the Confederation of the
Rhine, equally afflicted and less resigned; to Austria and Prussia,
where timid sovereigns and calculating Courts alone kept the peoples
true to the hated French alliance. Only by a change of system, they
averred, could the hatred of Europe be appeased, and the formation of
a new and vaster Coalition avoided. Let Napoleon cease to force his
methods of commercial warfare on the Continent: let him make peace on
honourable terms with Russia, where the chief Minister, Romantzoff,
was ready to meet him halfway: let him withdraw his garrisons from
Prussian fortresses, soothe the susceptibilities of Austria--and
events would tend to a solid and honourable peace.

To all promptings of prudence Napoleon was