y unceremonious
proceeding, for, when the door was closed, the marshal explained.

"You need not think that I have done him an injustice. When fellows like
this present their respects it always means that they want me to present
them with something else; that is why I cut them short."

Sometimes these interviews took a comical turn, for the marshal could be
very witty when he liked. In the land of "equality," everybody is always
on the look-out for greater privileges than his fellows, and in no case
were and are favours more indiscriminately requested than with the view
of avoiding military service. A thousand various pretexts, most of them
utterly ridiculous, were brought forward by the parents to preserve
their precious sons from the hated barrack life. In many instances, a
few years of soldiering would have done those young hopefuls a great
deal of good, because those who clamoured loudest for exemption were
only spending their time in idleness and mischief. In the provinces
there was a chance of influencing the _conseil de revision_ by means of
the prefet, if the parents were known to be favourable to the
government; by means of the bishops, if they still had a hankering after
the former dynasties; and, not to mince matters, if they were simply
rich, by means of bribery. In Paris the matter was somewhat more
difficult; the members of the council were frequently changed at the
last moment, and at all times the recruits to be examined were too
numerous for a parent to trust to the memory of those members. The
military authorities had introduced a new rule, to the effect that the
names of the recruits to be examined should not be called out until
their examination was finished; and, with the best will in the world, it
is often difficult to distinguish between un fils de famille and a
downright plebeian if both happen to come before you "as God made them."
Consequently, notwithstanding the considerable ingenuity of the parties
interested to let the examining surgeon-major known "who was who,"
mistakes frequently occurred; the young artisan, who had no more the
matter with him than the young wealthy bourgeois, was dismissed as
unfit for the service, while the latter was pronounced apt in every
respect.

Apropos of this, I know a good story, for the truth of which I can
vouch, because it happened to a member of the family with which I became
connected by marriage afterwards. He had a son who was of the same age
as his