If, then, these two hundred francs, instead of being subtracted from the gross product to be saved and capitalized, are consumed, there is an annual deficit of two hundred francs in the family assets; so that at the end of forty years these good people, without suspecting it, will have eaten up their property and become bankrupt! This result seems ridiculous--it is a sad reality.
The conscription comes.

What is the conscription?
An act of property exercised over families by the government without warning--a robbery of men and money.

The peasants do not like to part with their sons,--in that I do not think them wrong.

It is hard for a young man of twenty to gain any thing by life in the barracks; unless he is depraved, he detests it.

You can generally judge of a soldier's morality by his hatred of his uniform.