Note 246-3 — Chapter II

Necker, De l'Administration des Finances de la France, 1784, I, 205 ff., gives for 1771-80 the average number of births, per annum, 940,935; of deaths, 818,391; the population at 24,229,000. Legoyt, Statist. Comp., estimates the last, in 1784, at at least 26,748,843, probably even at 28,718,000. During the period, 1844-53, 35,000,000 to 36,000,000 Frenchmen had only about as many births (956,317) and deaths (815,723) as a much smaller population before the Revolution—the latter numbers, according to official estimation, omitting the still-born—which Necker also scarcely took into consideration. C'est la différence entre un peuple de prolétaires et une nation, dont les deux tiers jouissent des bienfaits de la propriété. (Moreau de Jonnès). In France, there was one death, in 1784, on every 30 living; in 1801, on every 35.8 living; in 1834-5, on every 38 living; in 1844, on every 39.9 living; in 1855-57 (average), on every 41.1 living; in 1860-65 (average), on every 43.7 living. It is also probable, that the average duration of life in France increased from the fact that, from 1800 to 1807, the number of persons subject to conscription was only 45 per cent. of the whole corresponding number of births; but that from 1822 to 1825 it was 61 per cent. (Bernoulli, Populationistik, 452.) On Paris alone, see Villermé, Mémoire lu à l'Académie des Sciences, 29 Nov., 1824. Compare supra, § 10.