{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02847571189279732, 'fraction_numerical': 0.03350083752093802, 'mean_word_length': 4.743589743589744, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
How War Fed War: The Tax of Violence and Contributions during the Grand Siècle

On a June day in 1649 the Regiment de Conti stood before the gates of Thorigny, near Fontainebleau. After asking for quarters and gaining admittance, these French troops went on a twelve-day rampage. Witnesses testified how the soldiers " used extraordinary violence, having beaten and ransomed the inhabitants, pillaged and burned their furnishings . . . cut down their fruit trees . . . [and] eaten and scattered their flocks."' What could explain such barbarity? It did not stem solely from the depravity of the troops but erupted from something more basic: these soldiers -like many of their peers -robbed and pillaged because the state that employed them lacked the resources to maintain them. Indeed, in its large army, the Bourbon monarchy had created a monster it could neither feed nor control; the unprecedented growth of French armed forces simply outstripped government capacity. The best evidence indicates that the actual size of all royal forces, field armies and garrisons combined, did not exceed 60,000 troops before 1544, when it probably hit 75,000. From this point into the 1570s royal forces occasionally regained this level, but during the sixty years before 1635 they probably never topped 60,000. The grand siecle saw this relative stability shatter. With French entry into the Thirty Years' War, official tallies climbed beyond 200,000, although the real size of the army should be discounted to about 125,000. During the personal reign of Louis XIV the army grew a second time, reaching an official high of more than 400,000, which can be discounted to 340,000 men under arms. This last figure represents a nearly sixfold increase over army highs attained in the decades before 1635.2