the wars. When the battle-cry rings over the land the whole nation arms itself and goes off to fight, as well as the officers, and when the nation stays at home, so do the officers. When I asked a friend of General de Gallifet the motives of his resignation, he replied haughtily: "How could you expect Gallifet to tolerate the interference in military affairs of a miserable pekin like Waldeck-Rousseau?" In vain did I point out that when an officer mixes himself up in politics and tries, in a mischievous and underhand fashion, to injure the Government, the Prime Minister has every right to interfere, since, in his quality of "miserable pekin," politics is his business and not a general's. And the man who was speaking to me was but a "pekin" himself, who, like the Prime Minister, had served in the army, and yet quite approved of martial contempt for all who do not wear a sabre or a plumed kepi. Watch these generals ride through the streets of Paris, beribboned and befrogged, and note the lofty, godlike way they gaze down upon the adoring multitude. Are they back from the wars? Do all these glorious and shining medals mean battles won? Where has Zurlinden fought with conspicuous glory? Where Mercier? Billot? Gonse? And yet they all look as proud and fatuous as the marshals of Bonaparte returning from their successful raids across Europe.
I have heard in France a great deal of fine talk,
