| The policy of Napoleon after again establishing the Catholic Religion
throughout the French Republic, extended not only to the souls, but also
to the minds of his new subjects, and he adopted a comprehensive, but completely
military system of education throughout his dominions, by the establishment
of public schools, to which all parents were obliged to send their children,
and where they were not only to be taught what the first Consul directed,
but also to be brought up under such a system of regularity and subordination,
as to make them soldiers in manner and in principle, almost from their earliest
infancy. By these means he foresaw that he was certain of having a new race
of soldiers; for being brought up with an evident reference to that profession,
and means being likewise taken to check internal commerce and manufacture,
which was the fact, notwithstanding all his boasted decrees, the young men
had no employment, and the necessity of finding support being thus added
to the natural love of action in young minds, it is not surprising that
his ranks should always have been so rapidly filled, particularly when aided
by the severe laws of Conscription. |
