Even in wet weather, however, the spirit of the conscript is usually proof against depression. There are compensations: for one thing, work is lightened as far as possible, and usually the operations of the manoeuvres are modified in case of a continual spell of wet weather, for it is not only the men who suffer from adverse climatic conditions, and it is not the business of a period of manoeuvres to impose too great a strain on the forces taking part therein. When the men are in their tents and the rain is driving down outside, the interminable songs of the army may be heard from the interiors of the tents. Even in a standing camp--that is to say, a camp located in one position for a period of several days--the men are made to undergo a certain number of parades in order to keep them in health, for continued idleness in camp almost certainly means disease, and, as has already been remarked, the authorities of the French Army are fully alive to the necessity for preserving the health of the men.
On the average, manoeuvre days are fine days; a spell of wet weather is exceptional, for the season of the year is chosen, in some degree, with a view to imparting as much instruction to officers and men alike as is possible in the allotted period. Given fine weather, one has to work--but then, one has to work in barracks, and not in such congenial fashion as in this life of open air and comparative freedom.
As the end of the manoeuvre period approaches, the second-year men get more and more excited, for your Frenchman, whether as conscript or civilian, is an excitable person, and not ashamed of showing his feelings as is the man west of the Channel. For these second-year men civilian life is getting very near. Pierre will go back to the farm, and Jacques will return to his place behind the counter, while Jean will once more polish the seat of the office stool for a stated period each day. But Jacques and Pierre and Jean will at times look back to the good days and the cheery comrades of the last manoeuvres, and perhaps, although this is a conscript army, they will know a transient regret in that they will never again go out from the barrack gate as units of a column setting out on the long march.