in Vendee,
and in the northern and eastern departments, it is the entire male,
able-bodied population, up to fifty years of age, which we drive in
herds against the enemy.[2110] We afterwards sign an entire generation
on, all young men between eighteen and twenty-five, almost a million of
men:[2111] whoever fails to appear is put in irons for ten years; he is
regarded as a deserter; his property is confiscated, and his family is
punished as well; later he is classed with the emigrants, condemned to
death, and his father, mother and progenitors, treated as "suspects,"
imprisoned and their possessions taken.--To clothe, shoe and equip
our recruits, we must have workmen; we summon to head-quarters all
gunsmiths, blacksmiths and locksmiths, all the tailors and shoemakers of
the district, "foremen, apprentices and boys;"[2112] we imprison those
who do not come; we install the rest in squads in public buildings
and assign them their tasks; they are forbidden to furnish anything to
private individuals. Henceforth, French shoemakers must work only for
us, and each must deliver to us, under penalty, so many pairs of shoes
per decade.[2113]--But, the civil service is no less important than the
military service, and to feed the people is as urgent as it is to defend
them. Hence we put "in requisition all who have anything to do with
handling, transporting or selling provisions and articles of prime
necessity,"[2114] especially combustibles and food--wood-choppers,
carters, raftsmen, millers, reapers, threshers, wine-growers, movers,
field-hands, "country people" of every kind and degree. Their hands
belong to us: we make them bestir themselves and work under the penalty
of fine and imprisonment. There shall be no idlers, especially in crop
time: we take the entire population of a commune or canton into the
fields, comprising "the lazy of both sexes;"[2115] willingly or not,
they shall do the harvesting under our eyes, banded together in fields
belonging to others as well as in their own, and they shall put the
sheaves indiscriminately into the public granary.

But in labor all hangs together, from the initial undertaking to the
final result, from the raw material to the most finished production,
from the great manufacturer down to the pettiest jobber; grasping the
first link of the chain involves grasping the last one. The requisition
here again answers the purpose: we apply it to all pursuits; each is
bound to continue his own;