Ch. vi. in France. 365 



ten years, taken while the population was in- 

 creasing, it is probably too low. If we take 

 220,000, then 440,000 persons will be supposed 

 to marry out of the 600,000 rising to a marriageable 

 age; and, consequently, the excess of those rising 

 to the age of 18 above the number wanted to 

 complete the usual proportion of annual marriages, 

 will be 160,000, or 80,000 males. It is evident, 

 therefore, that the accumulated body of 1,451,063 

 unmarried males, of a military age, and the annual 

 supply of 80,000 youths of 18, might be taken for 

 the service of the state, without affecting in any 

 degree the number of annual marriages. But we 

 cannot suppose that the 1,451,063 should be 

 taken all at once; and many soldiers are married, 

 and in a situation not to be entirely useless to the 

 population. Let us suppose 600,000 of the corps 

 of unmarried males to be embodied at once ; and 

 this number to be kept up by the annual supply 

 of 150,000 persons, taken partly from the 80,000, 

 rising annually to the age of 18, and not wanted 

 to complete the number of annual marriages, and 

 partly from the 851,063 remaining of the body of 

 unmarried males, which existed at the beginning 

 of the war: it is evident, that from these two 

 sources 150,000 might be supplied each year, 

 for ten years, and yet allow of an increase in 

 the usual number of annual marriages of above 

 10,000. 



It is true that in the course of the ten years 

 many of the original body of unmarried males will 



