I've read a lot of books on the French Revolution and additionally listened to Mike Duncan's wonderful podcast. All are pretty detailed on most events and personages in Paris and the cities but one area not even the Internet can tell me is just how were such large numbers of soldiers and militia from the city and rural populations recruited? There were defensive wars against the coalition, major uprisings outside Paris, further wars post Thermidor Reaction and crazy attempts to invade England, support Irish rebellion, the second coalition wars. And then you have Napoleon taking Italy, attempting to colonise Egypt eventually leaving his troops behind and then home for more fighting. So. How were the foot soldiers actually recruited? By force or mostly voluntarily? Were there recruitment drives to raise the forces or some local pressure to force certain locals of a fit age to fight? In The General Levee I assume appeals to patriotism helped but surely by 1798 or thereabouts there must have been some resistance to joining the military? As a sort of secondary question, did all this recruitment add to France's woes by affecting the economy (few people to create food crops or a labour shortage in industries)? Please forgive such a long question but this has bothered me for months.
The levee en masse is truly a miracle of Revolutionary logistics and the primary form of recruitment. This system worked on a lottery system: in a department (a regional division of France) young men would be noted for the Class of X year, from here Paris would say that Y numbers were required by Z department, so Z department would pull names (in a way that I don't know) and provide men by this lottery. If you were chosen, you'd be gathered and sent to a regimental depot to start with "basic" training. There was a requirement for these men to go but there was pressure from the Departments to procure the demanded numbers. The Gendarme did roam e countryside looking for deserters and "draft dodgers" and brought them back to their regiment.
Of course, there are ways around. First wealthy individuals could pay for a replacement, someone who volunteers to take their place but usually given a bounty as payment for their service in place of someone else. This could be relatively cheap for about twenty thousand Francs but got relatively expensive in 1814 when it went into the hundreds of thousands. Napoleon tried to put an end to it but people still did it unofficially.
The second route is for (again) wealthy individuals sending their sons to join the Imperial Young Guard (only for the Napoleonic era and after 1807). The Young Guard acted as a training ground for sons of merchants and tradesmen that shelled out to pay for a spot which would cover education, room, and board. These Guardsmen would eventually be promoted out to an officers rank but many preferred the cushy life of the Guard.
As for the effect, while I don't have numbers, it is certain that it had an affect. The economics is hard to determine since the Continental System hurt France as well as the rest of Europe. However the best indicator is how there was a poor showing for the Class of 1815 which was called in 1814 for the attempt to save the Napoleonic government. By then, Napoleon lacked support outside of the near fanatical support of those already in the army (minus the Marshalate). France was tired of nearly a decade of consttant war, trade was bad and the men were soldering. It's common for amateur historians to compare Hitler and Napoleon, they both had short lived Empires that drew excessively on its people, but the difference is that Napoleon listened to his generals and understood that the years of war and glory was exhausting.