Impact of Political and Industrial Revolutions 199meager stores when forced contributions and outright plunder of the
newly occupied lands could serve the purpose.
In this simple but effective fashion the French government went far
towards relieving the social instability that had triggered revolution in
the first place. Under the Directory, the mass of young men who had
been unable to find satisfactory careers in civil occupations before the
revolution were either successfully absorbed into the work force at
home or living as soldiers at the expense of neighboring peoples, or
else more or less gloriously dead.^32
Until 1800 the revolutionary solution to the demographic-eco
nomic crisis that had done so much to overthrow Louis XVI re
mained precarious. But when Napoleon came to power (1799) and
once again sent enemy armies reeling backward in defeat, the French
government became able to impose an effective tax system upon its
citizens. Thereafter, inflation was checked, and Napoleon distributed
the costs of supporting his armies more equably than the revolution
ary regimes had ever managed to do. In 1804–5, when he assembled
the cream of the French armed forces at Boulogne to prepare for
invasion of England, the maintenance of the army devolved again
mainly on France, although neighboring lands continued to provide
significant contributions—more or less forced—to the French war ef
fort.^33
Recruitment into the French armies had been regularized somewhat
earlier. The men called up in the general mobilization of 1793–94
remained under arms indefinitely. Subsequent call-ups were erratic
and partial—applied often to territories newly annexed to France—
until in 1798 the Directory passed a law requiring all men between the
ages of twenty and twenty-five to enroll with the Ministry of War.
They were classed according to the year of their birth; and the legis
lature was then supposed to decide, each year, just how many new
recruits were needed. The Ministry of War then assigned quotas to
each département, and local authorities chose the persons who would
serve, beginning with those of the youngest eligible age class. In time,
- As always before the twentieth century, disease killed far more soldiers than
enemy action; but statistics as to disease deaths were not kept and cannot be re
constructed. - These were sometimes in kind, i.e., an armed contingent, and sometimes in cash.
In 1804, for example, Napoleon wrested 16,000 soldiers from Holland as well as having
Dutch shipyards build many of the invasion barges intended to carry his troops across
the Channel. From Spain he extracted a heavy money payment, though it required an
ultimatum to persuade the Spanish government to pay up. Georges Lefebvre, Napoleon
(Paris, 1947), p. 165.