ABSTRACT
Conscription overshadowed every problem of administration in Napoleonic France. In an immediate sense, given its imperial ambitions, the regime's survival depended on it. More generally it was the touchstone of the relationship between state and civil society. In the old regime taxation had played such a role, and thanks to that experience Frenchmen were more or less inured to shouldering their tax burden, especially as rationalized by the Revolution. The mayors remained very much a part of the machine. But they now had responsibility without much power —either to spare their constituents or to undermine the government's plans. The war ministry made a preliminary tally of recent levies in October 1800. Altogether 70,000 men had been recruited so far, including 83 per cent of the first Napoleonic contingent of Year VIII. The interval between annual levies fluctuated with strategic and diplomatic considerations.
