Some Opinions on Exemption from Military Service in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Abstract

In strong contrast with twentieth-century prevailing forms of military obligation (by which service, whenever exacted, is individual, uncommutable for money, untransferable, no social status or fortune providing a legal basis by itself for exemption), nineteenth-century standards as imposed for the first time in revolutionary France after 1792–1793, were based on principles such as those stated in 1776 in Massachusetts: “That no rank or station in life, employment or office … shall excuse or exempt any person from serving in arms for the defence of his country either by himself or some able-bodied effective man in his stead … or from paying the fine.” As the brokers who made it their business to provide substitutes put it, more crudely, “le conscrit paye sa dette de sa personne ou par celle de l'homme qu'il achete”. Whatever the reasons invoked to justify “rich man's money and poor man's blood”, “l'impôt de sang pour le pauvre, impôt d'argent pour le riche“ the basis for this bastard form of equality in face of military obligation, from a juridical point of view, could be defined as a transition between Old Regime frank inequality and post-1870 personl, uncommutable, untransferable obligation. It was best summed up in Napoleon's words: “Chez un peuple dont Pexistence repose sur l'inegalite des fortunes il faut laisser aux riches la faculte de se faire remplacer.”