§ XXIII
The Injustice of Forced Conscription
The king is confronted with the sin of forced conscription, which destroys families and lives, and is contrasted with a just and merciful alternative.
Haven't you tolerated enlistments that weren't truly free? It's true that peoples owe themselves to the defense of the state; but only in just and absolutely necessary wars; yet one ought to choose, in each village, free young men whose absence would harm neither farming, nor commerce, nor the other necessary crafts in the least, and who have no family to feed; and yet there would need to be inviolable faithfulness in giving them their discharge after a small number of years of service, so that others would come relieve them and serve in their turn. But allowing men to be taken without selection and against their will; leaving a whole family to waste away and often perish, abandoned by its head; tearing the plowman from his plow, keeping him ten or fifteen years in the service, where he often dies miserably in hospitals stripped of the help he needs; smashing his head or cutting off his nose if he deserts—that is something nothing can excuse, either before God or before people.1
Read the original French
N'avez-vous point toléré des enrôlements qui ne fussent pas véritablement libres ! Il est vrai que les peuples se doivent à la défense de l'État : mais ce n'est que dans les guerres justes et absolument nécessaires : mais il faudroit qu'on choisît en chaque village les jeunes hommes libres, dont l'absence ne nuiroit en rien ni au labourage, ni au commerce, ni aux autres arts nécessaires, et qui n'ont point de famille à nourrir : mais il faudroit une fidélité inviolable à leur donner leur congé après un petit nombre d'années de service; en sorte que d'autres vinssent les relever et servir à leur tour. Mais laisser prendre des hommes sans choix, et malgré eux ; faire languir et souvent périr toute une famille abandonnée par son chef; arracher le laboureur de sa charrue, le tenir dix, quinze ans dans le service, où il périt souvent de misère dans des hôpitaux dépourvus des secours nécessaires ; lui casser la tête, ou lui couper le nez s'il déserte ; c'est ce que rien ne peut excuser, ni devant Dieu, ni devant les hommes.
Notes
- 1 ↩« Lui casser la tête, ou lui couper le nez » names real period penalties for desertion (execution or facial mutilation), not figurative speech.
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