Note 310 — Chapter LXXII
Reading edition
It has been given as a sufficient answer to these complaints, that Buonaparte is falsely accused of having drained France of her youth, since, upon the whole, the population is stated to have, on the contrary, increased. This may be the case; but it is no less certain, that the wars of Buonaparte consumed at least a million of conscripts, and it does not occur to us that the population of a country increases under such circumstances, like the growth of a tree subjected to much pruning; still less that the general result would satisfy parents for the slaughter of their children, any more than the sorrow of a mother who had lost her infant would be assuaged by the information that her next-door neighbour had been safely delivered of twins.—S.