ennoble themselves by zeal and
courage. But a hundred years ago the soldiery, properly so
called, consisted in France of what it now does with
you--the scum of the population. Picked up in low taverns,
between a heap of crown-pieces and a glass of brandy, the
soldier made himself more dreaded by the peasantry than by
the enemy. He seemed to be overpowered beneath the weight of
the scorn of the country at large, the meanness of his
present condition, and the impossibility of future
promotion; and he revenged himself by forays upon the cellar
and the farmyard. He had his place among the scourges which
desolated monarchical France. Hear what La Fontaine says,--

"La faim, les creanciers, _les soldats_, la corvee, Lui font
d'un malheureux la peinture achevee."

You see that your soldiers of 1858 are angels in comparison
with our _soudards_ of the monarchy. If, with all this, you
still find them, not absolutely perfect, try the French
recipe: submit all your citizens to a conscription, in order
that your regiments may not be composed of the refuse of the
nation, Create--"

"Stop!" cried the prelate.

"Monsignore?"

"I stopped you short, my son, because T perceive that you
are getting beyond the real and the possible. _Primo_, we
have no citizens; we have subjects. _Secundo_, the
conscription is a revolutionary measure, which we will not
adopt at any price; it consecrates a principle of equality
as much opposed to the ideas of the Government as to the
habits of the country. It might possibly give us a very good
army, but that army would belong to the nation, not to the
Sovereign. We will at once put away, if you please, this
dangerous utopia."

"It might gain you some popularity."

"Far from it. Believe me, the subjects of the Holy Father have a deep
antipathy to the principle of the conscription. The discontent of La
Vendee and Brittany is nothing to that which it would create here."

"People become accustomed to everything, Monsignore. I have met
contingents from La Vendee and Brittany singing merrily as they went
to join their corps."

"So much the better for them. But let me tell you the only grievance
of this country against the French rule is the conscription, which the
Emperor had established among us."

"So you negative my proposal of the conscription."

"Abs