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. In 1789, it comprised in all 72,260 men, and for eleven years their names, inscribed on the registers, alone constituted their presence in the ranks.[3255] There were no other conscripts under the monarchy; in this matter, its exactions were not great, ten times less than those of the Republic and of the Empire, since both the Republic and the Empire, using the same constraint, were to levy more than ten times the number of drafted men or conscripts.[3256]