148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



little racial significance, save as an index in decline in other and more vital 

 regards. Tall stature has been sought for in recruiting armies and so have 

 qualities of boldness and dash. The decline in stature can be measured; the 

 other qualities can not, but we may fairly assume that all soldierly traits have 

 suffered together and the measure of the one serves in some degree as the 

 measure of all. 



France has kept for over a century an interesting set of official records 

 which offers most valuable data for the scrutiny of the biologic student of war. 

 They are the records of the physical examination of all the male youths of 

 France as these youths reach their twentieth year of age, and offer themselves, 

 compulsorily, for conscription. To determine who realize the condition of 

 minimum height, weight, chest measurement, and the freedom from infirmity 

 and disease necessary for actual service, all are examined and the results re- 

 corded. These records show, therefore, for each year very clearly and pre- 

 cisely the physical status of the new generation of Frenchmen. 



The minimum physical condition for actual enlistment has varied much 

 with the varying needs of the nation for men of war. In certain warring 

 periods of her history France has had to drain to the very limit her resources 

 in men able to bear arms. Most notably this condition obtained during the 

 nearly continuous twenty-year period of the Napoleonic Wars. 



Louis XIV. in 1701 fixed the minimum height of soldiers at 1,624 mm. 

 But Napoleon reduced it in 1799 to 1,598 mm. (an inch lower) and in 1804 

 he lowered it two inches further, namely to 1,544 mm. It remained at this 

 figure until the Eestoration, when (1818) it was raised by an inch and a 

 quarter, that is, to 1,570 mm. In 1830, at the time of the war with Spain, it 

 was lowered again to 1,540 mm., and finally, in 1832 again raised to 1,560 mm. 

 Napoleon had also to reduce the figure of minimum age. 



The death list, both in actual numbers and in percentage of all men called 

 to the colors, during the long and terrible wars of the Eevolution and Empire, 

 was enormous. And the actual results in racial modification due to the re- 

 moval from the breeding population of France of its able-bodied male youth, 

 leaving its feeble-bodied youth and senescent maturity at home to be the fathers 

 of the new generation, is plainly visible in the condition of the conscripts of 

 later years. 



From the recruiting statistics, as officially recorded, it may be stated with 

 confidence that the average height of the men of France began notably to de- 

 crease with the coming of age in 1813 and on, of the young men born in the 

 years of the Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802), and that it continued to de- 

 crease in the following years with the coming of age of youths born during 

 the Wars of the Empire. Soon after the cessation of these terrible man- 

 draining wars, for the maintenance of which a great part of the able-bodied 

 male population of France had been withdrawn from their families and the 

 duties of reproduction, and much of this part actually sacrificed, a new type 

 of boys began to be born, boys that had in them an inheritance of stature that 

 carried them by the time of their coming of age in the late 1830 's and 40 's to 

 a height an inch greater than that of the earlier generations born in war time. 

 The average height of the annual conscription contingent born during the 

 Napoleonic Wars was about 1,625 mm.; of those born after the war it was 

 about 1,655 mm. 



The fluctuation of the height of the young men of France had as obvious 

 result a steady increase and later decrease in the number of conscripts 

 exempted in successive wars from military service because of undersize. Im- 

 mediately after the Restoration, when the minimum height standard was raised 

 from 1,544 mm. to 1,570 mm., certain French departments were quite unable 



