Once fierce beasts such as wolves, lions, tigers, and leopards had eaten or killed people, humans would kill them.
Because people knew very well that those animals no longer regarded humans as targets they could not hunt.
Once people had killed people, they too became different from how they had been before they had "seen blood."
The key was that, according to "human rights," these people could not be dealt with as casually as animals, especially the veterans. Many of them had served either to protect France or in obedience to the Conscription Law. Some people's current peace and safety had been won by them.
Dipaty was not one of those rich men or lawyers. He liked soldiers; he simply did not understand many things. The Conscription Law during the French Revolution had made even the children of wealthy families subject to recruitment. They could no longer be like the nobles of old, paying a little money to evade service, much less like the judges of the highest court, who, thanks to their privileges, did not even have to pay this military tax—and could pass that exemption down through the generations.
They were all young people in their twenties. Why did some have to go die on the battlefield while others could enjoy themselves with opera starlets in Paris?
To evade military service, some pulled out their teeth, while others chopped off their fingers. In the age of cold weapons, such "minor injuries" did not affect combat at all. Yet in the age of firearms, such disabilities meant they could no longer fight. At the same time, people bearing such "marks" were often deserters, and they were part of the disorder plaguing Paris. No "respectable" merchant would hire them.
This forgotten segment of society lived in Bondy Forest outside Paris,