We have seen how relief came to the old taxable subject, to the rural, to the small proprietor, to the man without any property, who lived on the labor of his own hands; the lightening of the direct tax restored to him from 14 to 43 free days, during which, instead of working for the exchequer, he worked for himself.

If married, and the father of two children over 7 years of age, the alleviation of one direct tax alone, that of the salt-tax, again restores to him 12 days more, in all from one to two complete months each year during which he is no longer, as formerly, a man doing statute-work, but the free proprietor, the absolute master of his time and of his own hands .-- At the same time, through the re-casting of other taxes and owing to the increasing price of labor, his physical privations decrease.

He is no longer reduced to consuming only the refuse of his crop, the wheat of poor quality, the damaged rye, the badly-bolted flour mixed with bran, nor to drink water poured over the lees of his grapes, nor to sell his pigs before Christmas because the salt he needs is too dear.[3251] He salts his pork and eats it, and likewise butcher's meat; he enjoys his boiled beef and broth on Sunday; he drinks wine; his bread is more nutritious, not so black and healthier; he no longer lacks it and has no fear of lacking it.
Formerly, he entertained a lugubrious phantom, the fatal image of famine which haunted him day and night for centuries, an almost periodical famine under the monarchy, a chronic famine and then severe and excruciating during the Revolution, a famine which, under the republic, had in three years destroyed over a million of lives.[3252] The immemorial specter recedes and vanishes; after two accidental and local recurrences, in 1812 and 1817, it never again appears in France.[3253] V.Conscription or Professional soldiers.
Military service .-- Under the Ancient Regime .-- The militia and regular troops .-- Number of soldiers .-- Quality of the recruits .-- Advantages of the institution .-- Results of the new system .-- The obligation universal .-- Comparison between the burdens of citizens and subjects .-- The Conscription under Napoleon .-- He lightens and then increases its weight.
-- What it became after him .-- The law of 1818.
One tax remains, and the last, that by which the State takes, no longer money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and for the best years of his life, namely military service.

It is the Revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly, it was light, for, in principle, it was voluntary.

The militia, alone, was raised by force, and, in general, among the country people; the peasants furnished men for it by casting lots.[3254] But it was simply a supplement to the active army, a territorial and provincial reserve, a distinct, sedentary body of reinforcements and of inferior rank which, except in case of war, never marched; it turned out but nine days of the year, and, after 1778, never turned out again.