It is easy to exaggerate the significance of these enormous figures, for to the layman they would seem to mean that every male capable of bearing arms was to be taken. But this was far from being the case; contrary to the general impression, the population of France had been and was steadily increasing. In spite of all the butcheries of foreign and civil wars, the number of inhabitants was growing at the rate of half a million yearly, and the country could probably have furnished three times the number called out. Moreover, less than a third of the nine hundred and thirty-six thousand were ever organized, and not more than an eighth of them fought. This disproportion between plan and fulfilment was due partly to official incapacity or worse, partly to a popular resistance which was not due to disaffection. It speaks volumes for the state of the country that even the hated flying columns, with their thorough procedure, could not find the men, especially the fathers, husbands, and only sons, who were the solitary supports of many families. The fields were tilled by the spades of women and children, for there were neither horses to draw nor men to hold the plows. Government pawn-shops were gorged, and the government storehouses were bursting with manufactured wares for which there was no market; government securities were worth less than half their face, the currency had disappeared, and usury was rampant. Yet it seems certain that four fifths of the people associated none of these miseries with Napoleonic empire. The generation which had grown to maturity under Napoleon saw only one side of his activities: the majestic public works he had inaugurated, the glories of France and the splendors of empire during the intervals of peace, the exhaustion and abasement of her foes in a long series of splendid campaigns--all this they associated with the imperial rule, and desired what they supposed was a simple thing, the Empire and peace.