Note Back to Main Text — MEMOIRS, &c. &c. (continued 2)

When come to the war department, he announced, that the Emperor had re-established on its old foundations the army, the elements of which had been intentionally dispersed by the late government. That since the 20th of March our forces had been raised by voluntary enlistments, and the recall of the ancient soldiery, from a hundred thousand men, to three hundred and seventy-five thousand. That the imperial guard, the noblest ornament of France during peace, and its strongest rampart during war, would soon amount to forty thousand men. That the artillery, notwithstanding the twelve thousand six hundred pieces of ordnance delivered to the enemy by the fatal convention of the 23d of April, 1814, had risen from its ruins, and now reckoned a hundred batteries, and twenty thousand horses. That our disorganised arsenals had resumed their labours, and were replacing the army stores. That our manufactories of arms, lately abandoned and empty, had made or repaired four hundred thousand muskets in the course of two months. That a hundred and seventy fortified towns, or fortresses, both on the frontiers and in the interior, had been provisioned, repaired, and put into a condition, to resist an enemy. That the national guard, completely re-organised, had already supplied for the defence of the frontiers two hundred and forty battalions, or a hundred and fifty thousand men; and that the successive formation of the other battalions of flank companies would produce more than two hundred thousand men. That the volunteers in the walled towns, and the pupils of the Lyceums and special schools[36], had been formed into companies of artillery, and constituted a body of more than twenty-five thousand excellent gunners. So that eight hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen would defend the independence, the liberty, and the honour of the country; while the sedentary national guards were preparing themselves in the interior, to furnish fresh resources for the triumph of the national cause.