e guest at the Tuileries. He was
a general officer, but, with a frankness that bordered on the cynical,
maintained that but for his capital voice and skill at leading "the
cotillon" he would probably have never risen beyond the rank of captain;
"for there are a thousand captains that know a great deal more than I
do, a couple of thousand that know as much as I do, and very few who
know less, none of whom have ever been promoted, and never will be,
unless they earn their promotion at the point of the sword." According
to him, the "records of service" were not as much as looked into at the
periods of general promotions. "A clever answer to one of the Emperor's
questions, a handsome face and pleasing manners, are sufficient to
establish a reputation at the Chateau. The ministers for war take
particular care not to rectify those impulsive judgments of the Emperor
and Empress, because they rightly think that careful inquiries into the
candidates' merits would hurt their own proteges, and those of their
fellow-ministers. This happy-go-lucky system--for a system it has
become--founded upon the most barefaced nepotism, is condoned, by those
who ought to have opposed it with all their might and main at the very
outset, on the theory that Frenchmen's courage is sure to make up in the
end for all shortcomings, which theory in itself is a piece of
impertinence, or at any rate of overweening conceit, seeing that it
implies the absence of such courage in the officers of other nations.
But there is something else. All these favourites are jealous of one
another, and, mark my words, this jealousy will in this instance lead to
disastrous results, because the Emperor will find it as difficult to
comply with as to refuse their individual extravagant demands. The time
is gone by for radical reforms. 'You cannot swap horses while crossing a
stream,' said Abraham Lincoln; and we are crossing a dangerous stream.
The Emperor has, besides, a horror of new faces around him, and to
extirpate the evil radically he would have to make a clean sweep of his
military household."

I must preface the following notes by a personal remark. For private
reasons, which I cannot and must not mention, I have decided not to put
my name to these jottings, whether they are published before or after my
death. I am aware that by doing this I diminish their value; because,
although I never played a political or even a social part in France, I
am sufficiently well kno