explain what I mean.

The "military household" is one of the imperial institutions which the
third republic accepted and continued. The first president, however,
did not revive it. "M. Thiers never had a military household," M.
Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, his private secretary and _fidus achates_
writes me; "however, in order to honor the army, he had two
orderlies." But when Marshal MacMahon became president in 1873, it was
only natural that he should surround himself with soldiers. At first
the "Cabinet of the Presidency" consisted of three officials, one of
them being a colonel. In 1875 this cabinet had grown to five members,
two of them colonels, and one an artillery officer. In 1879 the
"Cabinet of the Presidency" was reduced to two members with a
colonel at its head, but was supplemented with a "military
household"--the first appearance of this institution under the third
republic--consisting of six officers, so that Marshal MacMahon had
seven officers in all as his immediate attendants.

At this point M. Grevy enters the Elysee. He throws out the military
member of the Cabinet of the Presidency, but increases by one his
military household, so that there were as many officers at the Elysee
under the lawyer president as under the marshal president. Nor has M.
Carnot, the engineer president, departed from the example set by his
two predecessors.

When I asked M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire the explanation of this
custom, he answered: "Our kings were always provided with a military
household, in which marine officers also figured. It is doubtless this
precedent which has surrounded civilian republicans with a body of
officers. The custom is due less to necessity than to a desire to show
respect for the army and navy."

This same military parade is seen at the senate and chamber. During a
sitting of either of these bodies a company of infantry is kept under
arms in a room adjoining the legislative hall, and when the president
of either house enters the building, he advances between two files of
soldiers presenting arms, and is escorted to his chair by the
commanding officer.

This military element in the present government is as unnecessary as
it is dangerous and pernicious. It is dangerous because it might be
turned by an ambitious president against the very constitution he has
taken an oath to defend. Two instances of this danger are afforded by
the action of Napoleon I. on the 18th _Soumaire_ and by that of
Napol