paniards and Venetians to the
battle of Lepanto? Why should you not detach a regiment or
two to Algeria? France would, perhaps, give them a place in
her army; they might join us in advancing the holy cause of
civilization. Rest assured that when those troops returned,
after five or six campaigns, to the more modest duty of
preserving the public peace, everybody would obey them
courteously. Vulgar footmen would no longer dare to make use
of such expressions as one I heard yesterday evening at the
door of a theatre,--'Stick to your soldiering, and leave
servant's work to me!' They who despise them now, would be
proud to show them respect; for nations have a tendency to
admire themselves in the persons of their armies."

"For how long?"

"For ever. Acquired glory is a capital which can never be
exhausted. And these regiments would never lose the spirit
of honour and discipline which they would bring back from
the seat of war. You know not, Monsignore, what it is to
have an idea become incarnate in a regiment. There is a
whole world of recollections, traditions, and virtues,
circulating, seen and unseen, through this band of men. It
is the moral patrimony of the corps; the veterans don't
carry it away when they retire from the service, while the
conscripts inherit it from the day of their joining the
regiment. The colonel, the officers, and the privates,
change one after the other, and yet it is the same regiment
that ever remains, because the same spirit continues to
flutter amid the folds of the same colours. Have four good
regiments of picked men, well paid, properly respected, and
that have been under fire, and they will last as long as
Rome, and Mazzini himself will not prevail against their
courage."

"So be it! And may Heaven hear you!"

"The business is half done, Monsignore, when you have heard
me. We are not far from the Vatican, where sits the real
Minister of Arms."

"He will urge another objection."

"What will it be?"

"That if he send our regiments to serve their apprenticeship
in Africa, they will bring back French ideas."

"That is an accident, impossible to prevent. But console
yourself with the reflection that it is perfectly immaterial
whether the French ideas are brought into your cou