, and care,
these are easily attained. It is that you and I, my dear cousin,
should be in the midst of such an army as this in perfect safety.
Here are sixty thousand men who are all _irreconcilable enemies to
both you and myself_', not one among them that is not a man of more
strength and better armed than either, yet they all tremble at our
presence, while it would be folly on our part to tremble at theirs--
such is the wonderful effect of order, vigilance, and subordination.'

But a reasonable man might ask, what were the circumstances which
enabled Frederick to keep in a state of order and subordination an
army composed of soldiers who were 'irreconcilable enemies' of their
Prince and of their officers? He could have told the Prince d'Anhalt,
had he chose to do so; for Frederick was a man who thought deeply.
The chief circumstance favourable to his ambition was the imbecility
of the old French Government, then in its dotage, and unable to see
that an army of involuntary soldiers was no longer compatible with
the state of the nation. This Government had reduced its soldiers to
a condition worse than that of the common labourers upon the roads,
while it deprived them of all hope of rising, and all feeling of
pride in the profession.[17] Desertion became easy from the extension
of the French dominion and from the circumstance of so many
belligerent powers around requiring good soldiers; and no odium
attended desertion, where everything was done to degrade, and nothing
to exalt the soldier in his own esteem and that of society.

Instead of following the course of events and rendering the condition
of the soldier less odious by increasing his pay and hope of
promotion, and diminishing the labour and disgrace to which he was
liable, and thereby filling her regiments with voluntary soldiers
when involuntary ones could no longer be obtained, the Government of
France reduced the soldier's pay to one-half the rate of wages which
a common labourer got on the roads, and put them under restraints and
restrictions that made them feel every day, and every hour, that they
were slaves. To prevent desertions by severe examples under this
high-pressure System, they had recourse first to slitting the noses
and cutting off the ears of deserters, and, lastly, to shooting them
as fast as they could catch them.[18] But all was in vain; and
Frederick of Prussia alone got fifty thousand of the finest soldiers
in the world from the French r