Ch. vi. in France. 379 



children will always be in too great a proportion 

 to the number of grown-up people. A million of 

 individuals, he justly observes, will in this case 

 neither present the same military force nor the 

 same capacity of labour, as an equal number of 

 individuals in a country where the people are less 

 miserable.* 



Switzerland, before the revolution, could have 

 brought into the field, or have employed in labour 

 appropriate to grown-up persons, a much greater 

 proportion of her population than France at the 

 same period .f 



* De l'Administration des Finances, torn. i. c. ix. p. 263. 



f Since I wrote this chapter, I have had an opportunity of see- 

 ing the Analyse des Proces Verbaux des Consei/s Generaux de De- 

 partement, which gives a very particular and highly curious ac- 

 count of the internal state of France for the year VIII. With 

 respect to the population, out of 69 departments, the reports from 

 which are given, in 16 the population is supposed to be increased ; 

 in 42 diminished ; in 9 stationary; and in 2 the active population 

 is said to be diminished, but the numerical to remain the same. It 

 appears, however, that most of these reports are not founded on 

 actual enumerations ; and without such positive data, the prevail- 

 ing opinions on the subject of population, together with the ne- 

 cessary and universally acknowledged fact of a very considerable 

 diminution in the males of a military age, would naturally dis- 

 pose people to think that the numbers upon the whole must be 

 diminished. Judging merely from appearances, the substitution 

 of a hundred children for a hundred grown-up persons would cer- 

 tainly not produce the same impression with regard to population. 

 I should not be surprised, therefore, if, when the enumerations for 

 the year IX. are completed, it should appear that the population 

 upon the whole has not diminished. In some of the reports I'ai- 

 sancr generate repandue sur le peupie, and la division des grands pro- 

 prietcs, arc mentioned as the causes of increase ; and almost uni- 



