The first, that of children and boys by means of the University; the second, that of ordinary conscripts yearly and effected by the drawing by lot; the third, fourth and fifth provided by three standards of national guard, the first one comprising young unmarried men and held to frontier service, the second comprising men of middle age, married and to serve only in the department, and the third comprising aged men to be employed only in the defense of towns--in all, through these three classes, two millions of classified men, enrolled and armed, each with his post assigned him in case of invasion.

"In 1810 or 1811 up to fifteen or twenty drafts of this" proposal "was read to the council of State.

The Emperor, who laid great stress on it, frequently came back to it." We see the place of the University in his edifice: from ten to sixty years, his universal conscription was to take, first, children, then adults, and, with healthy persons, the semi-invalids, as, for instance, Cambaceres, the arch-chancellor, gross, impotent, and, of all men, the least military.

"There is Cambaceres," says Napoleon, "who must be ready to shoulder his gun if danger makes it necessary....

Then you will have a nation sticking together like lime and sand, able to defy time and man." There is constant repugnance to this by the whole Council of State, "marked disfavor, mute and inert opposition....