Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/311

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 293 shared among four and twenty millions of inhabitants C H A l X '' 1 1. Seven millions of these, in the capacity of fathers or L- brothers or husbands, may discharge the obligations of the remaining multitude of women and children ; yet the equal proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above fifty shillings of our money, instead of a pro- portion almost four times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their Gallic ancestors. The rea- son of this difference may be found, not so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as in the different state of society in ancient Gaul and in modern France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied on property or on con- sumption, may be fairly divided among the whgle body of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman world, were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent condition was a less rigid servitude''. In such a state the poor were maintained at the ex- pense of the masters, who enjoyed the fruits of their labour; and as the rolls of tribute were filled only with ^ This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is founded on the ori- ginal registers of births, deaths, and marriages, collected by public autho- rity, and now deposited in the Controle General at Paris. I'he annual average of births throughout the whole kingdom, taken in five years, (from 1770 to 1774, both inclusive,) is four hundred and seventy-nine thousand six hundred and forty-nine boys, and four hundred and forty-nine thousand two hundred and sixty-nine girls ; in all nine hundred and twenty-eight thou- sand nine hundred and eighteen children. The province of French Hainault alone furnishes nine thousand nine hundred and six births : and we are as- suied, by an actual numeration of the people annually repeated from the year 1773 to the year 1776, that, upon an average, Hainault contains two hundred and fifty-seven thousand and ninety-seven inhabitants. By the rules of fair analogy, we might infer, that the ordinary proportion of annual births to the whole people, is about one to twenty-six ; and that the king- dom of France contains twenty-four million one hundred and fifty-one thou- sand eight hundred and sixty-eight persons of both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves with the more moderate proportion of one to twenty- five, the whole population will amount to twenty-three million two hundred and twenty-two thousand nine hundred and fifty. From tiie diligent re- searches of the French government, (which are not unworthy of our own imi- tation,) we may hope to obtain a still greater degree of certainty on this im- portant subject. y Cod. Theod. 1. v. tit. ix. x. xi. ; Cod. .Justinian. J. xi. tit. Ixiii. Coloni appeilantur qui condilionem debent genitali solo, propter agriculluram sub dominio possessoruni. Augustin. de Civitale Dei, I. x. c. 1.