millions. Militia duty was greatly hated, however. This appears to have
been because men did not volunteer for it, but were drafted; and because
many persons were exempted from the draft. This immunity covered not
only the sons of aged parents who were dependent on them for support,
but privileged persons of all sorts, from apothecaries to advocates,
gentlemen and their servants and game-keepers. The burden was thus
thrown entirely on the poorer peasantry.[Footnote: Broc, i. 117;
Babeau, _Le Village_, 259.]

The navy in the time of Louis XVI. reached a high state of efficiency.
The war of 1778 to 1783 was in great measure a naval war, and although
the French and their allies were worsted in some of the principal
actions, the general result may be held to have been favorable to them.
The navy at the outbreak of hostilities consisted of about seventy ships
of the line, and as many frigates and large corvettes, with a hundred
smaller vessels. These ships were built on admirable models, for the
French marine architects were well-trained and skillful; but the
materials and the construction were not equal in excellence to the
design. The invention of coppering the ships' bottoms, and thus adding
to their speed, although generally practiced in England, had been
applied in France only to the smaller part of the navy. The French,
however, had an advantage over the English in the fact that ships of the
same nominal class were in reality larger and broader of beam among the
former than among the latter, so that the French were sometimes able to
fight their lower batteries in rough water, when the English had to keep
their lower ports closed.

The naval officers of France were almost all noblemen, and received a
careful professional training. Yet the practice of transferring officers
of high rank from the army to the navy had not been completely