ARMY AND NAVY.-At the com.nencement of the revolution France had not an effective army of above 140,000 men: although as early as 1688 she had sent into the field a force of double that number. The compulsory levies of 1793 and 1794 augmented this force prodig.ously; and between 500,000 and 600,000 are said to have followed the republican banners. During the campaigns of 1795, 1796, and 1797, and in those of 1799 and 1800, the force maintained by France and Holland was between 300,000 and 400,000. Buonaparte, at the peace of Amiens, settled his peace establishment at 300,000 men. At the renewal of war it was raised to 400,000, a force with which, in 1805, he overcame the united armies of Austria and Russia. His annual levy of French conscripts averaged at this period 100,000; a supply which, joined to the recruits of his allies, kept up his numbers, and even increased them, notwithstanding the wasteful campaigns of 1806 and 1807. So that in 1812 the force at the command of this mighty despot reached its maximum, and he led into Russia a mass of 360,000 men, while there remained at home, and in Spain and Germany, a number which carried the aggregate to nearly 600,000. With the latter, after the almost total loss of his troops in Russia, and with the aid of fresh levies, he withstood the efforts of Europe in arms against him during two campaigns. In 1815, on his return from Elba, Buonaparte found about 120,000 men under arms in France. But the disposition of the French people in regard to war was so changed, that the greatest efforts, during the next three months, could only add 60,000 to this number, and the loss of one battle happily disappointed all his hopes. In 1817 the Bourbon government had recourse to the conscription as the only effectual method of filling the ranks; but it was greatly modified, the numbers required being limited to 40,000, and the term of service to six years; still the measure was compulsory, and fell heavy on the middle and lower classes; the alternative for a youth, when drawn, being either to give up his intended profession, or to pay £40 or £50 for a substitute. In 1819 the French army thus amounted to 100,000 men; and soon after to 150,000, a number likely to form its permanent peace establishment. This force is composed of sixteen regiments of the guards; viz. eight of infantry, and eight of cavalry; each of the former having three battalions, and each of the latter six squadrons: the cavalry of the line, under the various denominations of chasseurs, dragoons, cuirassiers, and hussars, in all forty-eight regiments, but in peace they are on a reduced scale: the infantry of the line, classed during the revolution by brigades, and under Buonaparte by regiments, now (since February 1819) by legions, of which there is one for each department, making in all eighty-six, each generally of three battalions: the total number of battalions is 258: the artillery, composed of eight regiments serving on foot, and eight of horse. The engineers are a numerous and well-educated body of officers; the corps of Ingénieurs Géographes comprises five colonels. There are Swiss troops in the French service amounting to 10,000, of whom above 4000 are in the guards. The Mauson du Roi, or body guards, are a corps of young men of family, who go through this service as an introduction to military life. The gradations of rank in the service generally are, sous-lieutenant, lieutenant, capitaine, chef d'escadron, colonel, maréchal-de-camp, lieutenant-général, maréchal de France. The number of the marshals of France is limited to twelve; the number of the other ranks, even that of lieutenant-général, is large, for the etat major, or staff of the army, after a reduction in 1818, consists of 130 lieutenauts-généraux, and 260 maréchaux de camp. There are on full pay twice as many officers as are necessary for the duty, but the number of half-pay officers exceeds all proportion. Promotion in the French army never takes place by purchase, and not often by special order; seniority at present determines more than half the appointments. Of the military schools of France, the Ecole Polytechnique is in highest repute, for the instruction of young men in mathematics and drawing; for the engineer and artillery corps is a seminary in which none but candidates of talent are admitted. The entire war department under Buonaparte cost annually, for some years, £20,000,000. In 1791 the effective French navy was stated at seventy-four sail of the line, sixty-two frigates, and twenty-nine corvettes. Our victories of Toulon in 1794, and at Aboukir, reduced this, so that Buonaparte found the marine force on his accession to power in a very weak state; and it was not until after the peace of Amiens that he ever could muster a fleet of sixty sail of the line. This was destined to an early humiliation at Trafalgar; and, on the accession of the Bourbons, they could not muster above thirty sail of the line. In 1820 the official accounts give fortyeight sail of the line, and twenty-nine frigates, as the navy of France; eleven of the former being on the stocks, and four of the latter. The annual vote for the navy is 1,800,000. The garde nationale is a popular corps in France, answering to the description of our volunteer infantry and yeomanry. In Paris alone, at the period of its late dissolution, it amounted to nearly 50,000; it is found in all the large towns of France. The gendarmerie is a much similar corps, chiefly used in aid of the police, and not exceeding in the whole 20,000 men. RELIGION AND EDUCATION.-The old French church, though catholic, was singularly independent of the interference of the papal see in its ecclesiastical affairs. It had very extensive landed property, which in the early part of the revolution (in 1790) was computed to be worth £100,000,000 sterling, and was assumed by the national assembly, who granted a fixed income in money to the clergy in lieu of these possessions. This arrangement is still in force; and the total fund thus annually payable is not short of £1,500,000, a sum which, though large, leaves but sinall incomes when divided among so many thousand claimants. A cardinal, of which there are at present six, has £1300 per annum; an archbishop has from £700 to £800 a-year; a bishop from £500 to £600, a curé in a large town £60 or £70; in a country parish £40; and in many cases only £30, with a house and garden. At the revolution all religion, as we shall see, was abandoned for an avowal of deism and the worship of nature: this was succeeded by that species of public indifferentism to religion which now so singularly mixes with the most wretched occasional exhibitions of superstition and fanaticism on the continent. However it has effected in France the toleration of all sects; or rather their full liberty, to worship God as they please. After the revolutionary troubles Buonaparte first concluded a convention with the pope, whereby fifty only, of the 130 sees existing before the revolution, were restored. The Bourbons afterwards agreed that forty-two more should be added, but very gradually filled them up. The nomination of all clergymen, whether Catholic or Protestant, is vested in the crown; and the latter receive an income according to the size of the congregations. In respect to political feeling, the Catholic clergy are, almost without exception, warmly attached to the Bourbons, while the Protestants have felt a considerable and just distrust of the reigning family. They are said, however, of late, to be very steadily protected. Female convents have from time immemorial existed in France, except for a few years of the worst part of the revolution, and respectable females are largely educated in them. Monasteries are, with very few exceptions, abolished, and no idea is entertained of re-establishing the abbeys, priories, and other endowed establishments. The Protestants amount to about 2,000,000, and are found chiefly in the south, particularly in the neighbourhood of Nismes. They are eligible to any civil office. At the revolution the old funds appropriated to the education of the lower orders were supposed to amount to about £1,000,000 sterling, and were chiefly expended in foundations attached to monasteries and the universities. These were absorbed in the destruction of the church; and it was not until 1796 that an act was passed to provide in their place primary and central schools: but new troubles retarding the execution of this plan, Buonaparte placed, by a special act, all the schools of the empire under the control of le grand maitre et conseil de l'Université de Paris, and a board called Commission d'Instruction Publique. This board is continued by the Bourbons. It is computed that not more than half the lower orders in France are taught to read, chiefly in consequence of the want of schools in thinly-peopled districts. The legislature has, at different times, acknowledged this want, and authorised rectors of universities to grant certificates of capacity as teachers to all persons who should be found duly qualified; but no salary is provided, and the aid given by the magistrates of a commune is, in general, limited to a school-room or a dwelling for the teacher. In this state of education, schools on the plan of Bell and Lancaster could hardly fail to be favorably received in France. They bear the name of écoles d'enseignement mutuel; and in 1820 amounted in number nearly to 800. But, though the establishment of elementary schools was thus tardy, the case was very different in regard to the lycées, or schools of the middle and upper classes. These were the particular objects of Buonaparte's care, both as a nursery for officers, and to increase his interest with the parents. Hence he provided them with a number of bourses or scholarships, and granted them exclusive licenses for teaching. A lycée consists, in general, of a spacious range of respectable buildings, like one of our English colleges, with courts and play grounds, enclosed with walls. The pupils, at least those who board in the establishment, go out only with the leave of the proviseur or superintendent. The principal objects of education are Latin and the mathematics; the former occupying four or five years, the latter about two. Along with these are taught writing and drawing; geography and history; to which, in the time of Buonaparte, was added the military exercise. The whole course occupies six, seven, or eight years. The teachers, or professors, as the French style them, are, in general, men of education, but seldom animated with much activity. The board and education of a boy, at a lycée, costs from £15 to £30 in provincial towns, and £36 at Paris. On these payments is levied a tax of five per cent., called taxe universitaire. A similar impost exists on private schools, with the exception of those for mere reading and writing; and the money thus collected is remitted to the central board at Paris. To this fund is added, by the chambers, an annual vote of from £60,000 to £80,000, and the whole is appropriated to purposes connected with education; in particular to the salaries of the teachers of the less frequented lycées. Public examinations are held at these establishments, and prizes distributed periodically the whole on a plan calculated to excite emulation. There are throughout France twenty-six academies, similar to our universities; and the towns where they are situated are, On the subject of the French manners and customs we feel disposed to say little, because general observations, on the habits of so large and diversified a community, are rarely just, and because our extended intercourse with France, for the last ten years, must have given to the majority of our readers full opportunity to form their judgment upon this topic, either from personal observation, or the remarks of our numerous travellers. While an Englishman, on landing in France, will be to a degree surprised and disgusted with the apparent negligence and want of cleanliness and decorum which pervade the manners of the people, he will feel these in no small degree counterbalanced by the uniform cheerfulness, hospitality, and frankness of all classes. Every thing is out of order; the common inns are complete Irish cabins, and the streets much resembling those of the Auld Town' of Edinburgh, in regard to certain accumulations and general filthiness; while each sex considers the most unreserved enquiries into your business and objects fully warranted by the universal willingness to acquaint you with their own. The eyes of our countrymen are also particularly engaged by the remarkable activity of the women of the middle and lower classes. While in England the domestic circle and its cares are felt to occupy them sufficiently, particularly as we advance from the lowest stations in life; in France they are in the habit of taking part in almost every kind of business, and appear even more frequently than the male sex in shops and warehouses. This produces naturally a degree of coarseness in the manners of the middle class of females not seen in this country. There is also said to be a remarkable contrast between the restraint observable in the females of France before marriage, and the unbounded license of their deportment afterwards. His vivacity and love of society, urge a Frenchman to singular excesses: he is all ardor of course in love and friendship, but he is con sumed with ennui' out of society. It is his element, to the utter neglect of personal stability of character; the life of his pleasures and the centre of his gratifications.' Hence all ranks of society love display: effect is the great and almost sole aim of a parliamentary oration; and the middle and lower ranks work, sit, debate, and converse in the streets with a pantomimic eagerness to accomplish that great object. No one has, on the whole, characterised the French with more true English feeling, than the late lamented Mr. Scott. The essence of their character,' he observes, 'is an exuberance of animal spirits, producing excess of mobility, and a perpetual restless activity. They are quick, ingenious, fertile in expedient, buoyant against difficulty or adversity; but mutable, trifling, confident, vain, credulous, and incapable of moderation. With much that renders them amiable in society, as readiness to oblige, delicate attentions, kind sympatry, and lively sensibility, they are often of insecure commerce, from laxity of principle, unmeaning professions, jealous irritability, and a strong propensity to intrigue.' They are a clever people, they are an active people, they are a gay people; but they are not deep or sound thinkers; they do not feel virtuously, or permanently; they have no native relish for the charms of nature, the shallow sophistications and theatrical forms of artificial systems are their favorites;—they can see nothing but simple facts, they cannot detect causes, consequences, and connexion,-and (what is worst of all) their actions are not indexes to their hearts. Hence they must be, and are, smart conversers, amiable talkers, dexterous workers,-persons who pull down pyramids to see what they contain,-who make drawings of ruins, exhibitions of statues, and speeches at institutes :-but hence they cannot be, and are not, either inspired poets, sound moralists, or correct politicians. Look at all the great modern discoveries of concealed truths, that have done honor to human knowledge, and advantage to human condition, scarcely one of them has been made by France-but France has robbed the discoverers of their honors, and France has raised many splendid but false theories, and Frenchmen have been very able and industrious compilers, collectors, linguists and travellers. On the other hand, by far the majority of the atrocities, disappointments, and sufferings, which have befallen the world during the last 100 years, have had their source in France; there is scarcely an imaginable extreme of opposite follies and crimes into which she has not plunged herself within that period;— there is not an example of imprudence which she has not afforded, not a possible boast of vanity which she has not offensively made, and from which she has not been disgracefully driven. It would be unworthy of a rational man to feel incensed against a nation,-but it would be dastardly and unfaithful towards all the most important interests of our nature, to fall silently in with pretensions that are untrue, unfair, and mischievous. There is no shape in which the claim of being the greatest people in the world can be made, in which it has not been made by the French. It is repeated day after day, under every possible change of circumstances; now as conquerors, now as vanquished, now as republicans, now as imperialists, now as royalists. Whatever freak they cut, whatever tumble they take, whether they stand on their heads or their heels, or lie or sit,-they poke their faces in those of their neighbours, with a supercilious grin of satisfaction, and an intolerable assumption of superiority.' POPULATION. France in 1791, when of about the present extent of territory, according to a survey then made, contained 26,363,600 inha bitants: in 1817 she was computed to number 29,000,000 of inhabitants. The ratio of the increase of population in this country is found to be greatest in the lower classes; the middle and upper ranks seldom having large families, and men of such stations being little habituated to steady industry. The illegitimate births are not numerous except in Paris. The following tables exhibit both the actual existing state of the population according to the latest returns; and the progress of it with regard to births, marriages, and deaths TABLE I. POPULATION of each DRPARTMENT of FRANCE, according to the Returns made underla Direction de la Statistique' of the Minister of the Interior in 1820, according to the limits fixed by the treaties of peace in 1814 and 1815. |