It is true, that if the numbers, and we may add the quality, of the army which France brought into the field on this momentous occasion, were alone to be considered, Napoleon might be excused for holding cheap the assistance which he might have derived from Sweden or the Porte. He had anticipated the conscription of 1811, and he now called out that of 1812; so that it became plain, that so long as Napoleon lived and warred, the conscription of the first class would be--not a conditional regulation, to be acted or not acted upon according to occasion--but a regular and never-to-be-remitted tax of eighty thousand men, annually levied, without distinction, on the youth of France. To the amount of these conscriptions for two years, were to be added the contingents of household kings, vassal princes, subjected republics--of two-thirds of Europe, in short, which were placed under Buonaparte's command. No such army had taken the field since the reign of Xerxes, supposing the exaggerated accounts of the Persian invasion to be admitted as historical. The head almost turns dizzy as we read the amount of their numbers. The gross amount of the whole forces of the empire of France, and its dependencies and allies, is thus given by Boutourlin:--[100] Total amount of the French army, 850,000 men. The army of Italy, under the Viceroy Eugene, 50,000 of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, with other Poles, 60,000 of Bavaria, 40,000 of Saxony, 30,000 of Westphalia, 30,000 of Wurtemberg, 15,000 of Baden, 9,000 of the Princes of the Confederacy of the Rhine, 23,000 The corps of Prussian auxiliaries, 20,000 of Austrian auxiliaries, 30,000 The army of Naples, 30,000 --------- 1,187,000 men. But to approximate the actual force, we must deduce from this total of 1,187,000, about 387,000 men, for those in the hospital, absent upon furlough, and for incomplete regiments. Still there remains the appalling balance of 800,000 men, ready to maintain the war; so that Buonaparte was enabled to detach an army to Russia greatly superior to what the Emperor Alexander could, without immense exertions, get under arms, and this without withdrawing any part of his forces from Spain.