s, 1087 cowardly deserted
their flag (Haute-Loire), and out of 900 recently recruited at Puy, to
form the nucleus of the second battalion, 800 again have imitated their
example."--Dufort de Cheverney, "Memoires," September, 1799. "We learned
that out of 400 conscripts confined in the (Blois) chateau, who were
to set out that night, 100 had disappeared."--October 12, 1799: "The
conscripts are in the chateau to the number of 5 or 600. They say that
they will not desert until out of the department and on the road, so
as not to compromise their families."--October 14, "200 have deserted,
leaving about 300."--Archives Nationales, F.7, 3267. (Reports every
ten days on refractory conscripts or deserters arrested by the military
police, year VIII. Department of Seine-et-Oise.) In this department
alone, there are 66 arrests in Vendemiaire, 136 in Brumaire, 56 in
Frimaire and 86 in Pluviose.]

[Footnote 51126: Mallet-Dupan, No. for January 25, 1799. (Letter from
Belgium.) "To-day we see a revolt like that which the United Provinces
made against the Duke of Alba. Never have the Belgians since Philip II.
displayed similar motives for resistance and vengeance."]

[Footnote 51127: Decrees of Fructidor 19, year VI. and Vendemiaire 27,
year VII.--Mallet-Dupan, No. for November 25, 1798.)]

[Footnote 51128: M. Leonce de Lavergne ("Economie rurale de la France
since 1789," p.38) estimates at a million the number of men sacrificed
in the wars between 1792 and 1800.--"Trustworthy officials, who, a
year a go, have had the official documents in their possession, have
certified to me that the war statistics for the levying of troops
between 1794 and the middle of 1795 had raised 900,000 men of whom
650,000 had been lost in battle, in the hospitals or by desertion."
Mallet-Dupan. (No. for December 10, 1798.--Ibid. (No. for March 20,
1799.) "Dumas affirmed that, in the Legislative Corps, the National
Guard had renewed the battalions of the defenders of the country three
times.... The fact of the shameful administration of the hospitals is
proved through the admissions of generals, commissaries and deputies
that the soldiers were dying for want of food and medicine. If we add to
this the extravagance with which the leaders of the armies let the me
be killed, we can readily comprehend this triple renewal in the space of
seven years.--As an illustration there was the village of four hundred
and fifty inhabitants in 1789 furnished (1792 and 1793)