If then an object could be attained
by such means, so much time was saved, and the loss eventually the same:
but the Generals of other countries dare not risk such philosophical
calculations, and would be accountable to the laws of humanity for their
destructive conquests.
When you estimate the numbers that compose the French armies, you are not
to consider them as an undisciplined multitude, whose sole force is in
their numbers. From the beginning of the revolution, many of them have
been exercised in the National Guard; and though they might not make a
figure on the parade at Potsdam, their inferiority is not so great as to
render the German exactitude a counterbalance for the substantial
inequality of numbers. Yet, powerfully as these considerations favour
the military triumphs of France, there is a period when we may expect
both cause and effect will terminate. That period may still be far
removed, but whenever the assignats* become totally discredited, and it
shall be found requisite to economize in the war department, adieu la
gloire, a bas les armes, and perhaps bon soir la republique; for I do not
reckon it possible, that armies so constituted can ever be persuaded to
subject themselves to the restraints and privations which must be
indispensible, as soon as the government ceases to have the disposal of
an unlimited fund.
* The mandats were, in fact, but a continuation of the assignats,
under another name.
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