army.

--The whole army?

--Except special branches, which will be voluntarily recruited, like all
other professions. You see, conscription is abolished.

--Sir, you should say recruiting.

--Ah, I forgot, I cannot help admiring the ease with which, in certain
countries, the most unpopular things are perpetuated by giving them
other names.

--Like _consolidated duties_, which have become _indirect
contributions_.

--And the _gendarmes_, who have taken the name of _municipal guards_.

--In short, trusting to Utopia, you disarm the country.

--I said that I would muster out the army, not that I would disarm the
country. I intend, on the contrary, to give it invincible power.

--How do you harmonize this mass of contradictions?

--I call all the citizens to service.

--Is it worth while to relieve a portion from service in order to call
out everybody?

--You did not make me Minister in order that I should leave things as
they are. Thus, on my advent to power, I shall say with Richelieu, "the
State maxims are changed." My first maxim, the one which will serve as a
basis for my administration, is this: Every citizen must know two
things--How to earn his own living, and defend his country.

--It seems to me, at the first glance, that there is a spark of good
sense in this.

--Consequently, I base the national defense on a law consisting of two
sections.

Section First. Every able-bodied citizen, without exception, shall be
under arms for four years, from his twenty-first to his twenty-fifth
year, in order to receive military instruction.--

--This is pretty economy! You send home four hundred thousand soldiers
and call out ten millions.

--Listen to my second section:

SEC. 2. _Unless_ he proves, at the age of twenty-one, that he knows the
school of the soldier perfectly.

--I did not expect this turn. It is certain that to avoid four years'
service, there will be a great emulation among our youth, to learn _by
the right flank_ and _double quick, march_. The idea is odd.

--It is better than that. For without grieving families and offending
equality, does it not assure the country, in a simple and inexpensive
manner, of ten million defenders, capable of defying a coalition of all
the standing armies of the globe?

--Truly, if I were not on my guard, I should end in getting interested
in your fancies.

_The Utopist, getting excited:_ Thank Heaven, my estimates are relieved
of a hundred millions!