And all the more because, by this arrangement, the civil staff preserves for itself its future recruits; it is from nineteen to twenty-six that the future chiefs and under-chiefs of the great work of peaceful and fruitful labor, the savants, artists or scholars, the jurisconsults, engineers or physicians, the enterprising men of commerce or of industry, receive and undertake for themselves a special and superior education, discover or acquire their leading ideas, and elaborate their originality or their competency.

If talent is to be deprived of these productive years their growth is arrested in full vegetation, and civil capacities, not less precious for the State than military capacities, are rendered abortive.[3271]--Towards 1804,[3272] owing to substitution, one conscript out of five in the rural districts, one conscript out of seven in the towns, and, on the average, one conscript out of ten in France, escapes this forced abortive condition; in 1806, the price of a substitute varies from eighteen hundred to four thousand francs,[3273] and as capital is scarce, and ready money still more so, a sum like this is sufficiently large.

Accordingly, it is the rich or well-to-do class, in other words the more or less cultivated class, which buys off its sons: reliance may be placed on their giving them more or less complete culture.

In this way, it prevents the State from mowing down all its sprouting wheat and preserves a nursery of subjects among which society is to find its future elite .-- Thus attenuated, the military law is still rigid enough: nevertheless it remains endurable.

It is only towards 1807[3274] that it becomes monstrous and grows worse and worse from year to year until it becomes the sepulcher of all French youth, even to taking as canon fodder the adolescent under age and men already exempt or free by purchase.