to his
officers, to prefer to them a civilian at such a critical moment? I may
state here that it was always the height of M. Thiers' ambition to be
considered a great strategist and tactician, and also a military
engineer. "Jomini was a civilian," he frequently exclaimed. Those who
were competent to judge, have often declared that Thiers' pretensions in
that direction were, to a certain extent, justified by his talents.
Curiously enough, M. de Freycinet is affected by a similar mania.

Here is a certain correlative to the above-mentioned fact. When, a few
months after the Commune, things were getting ship-shape in Paris, a
large bundle of printed matter was unearthed in the erstwhile Imperial
(then National) Printing Works. It contained, amongst others, a circular
drawn up by the Emperor himself, entitled "A Bad Piece of Economy;" it
was addressed to the deputies, and dated May, 1870; it showed the
presumptive strength of the army of the North-German Confederation as
compared with that of France, and wound up with the following sentence:
"If we compare the military condition of North-Germany with ours, we
shall be able to judge how far those who would still further reduce our
national forces are sufficiently enlightened as to our real interests."

It has always been a mystery to me, and to those who were aware of its
existence, why this circular was not distributed at the proper time;
though, by the light of subsequent events, one fails to see what good it
could have done then. Were these events foreseen at the Tuileries as
early as May? I think not. The majority of the Emperor's entourage were
confident that war with Germany was only a matter of time; very few
considered it to be so imminent. One cannot for a moment imagine that
the suppression of this circular was due to accidental or premeditated
neglect; for the sovereign, though ailing and low-spirited, was still
too mindful of his prerogatives not to have visited such neglect of his
wishes, whether intentional or not, with severe displeasure. Nor can one
for a moment admit that the Emperor was hoodwinked into the belief that
the circular had been distributed. His so-called advisers probably
prevailed upon him to forego the distribution of the document, lest it
should open the eyes of the nation to the inferiority of France's
armaments. The only man who had dared to point out that inferiority,
three years previously, was General Trochu, and his book, "l'Armee
Fra