Another writer, who concerns himself more exclusively with military matters, M. Abel Veuglaire, arrives at an equally depressing conclusion. He, too, finds nothing to quite replace the old-time qualities which fed the military spirit. The soldier of the last century, under the rod of his corporal, did not rebel because he had been made an artificial being, brutalized, deprived of all those sentiments which, if they could excite enthusiasm, could also produce discouragement. In him, the desire for wine and pillage, the eagerness for quarrel, the sentiment of a point of honor, were carefully substituted for the family affections and the consciousness of moral duties. The promise of plunder and the fear of the gallows, a certain pride in his corps or his regiment, a certain _esprit cocardier_, made of him a soldier. But the moral worth of the modern recruit is derived from his family or from his school. "Very scarce, indeed, are those whom the regiment transforms. Scarcer still are those whom it will transform in the future. We are dupes of an illusion. We see the young men leave the military service very different from what they were when they entered it. We exclaim that the discipline is wholesome, that the air of the barracks is vivifying, that the regiment is a school of moral tendencies at the same time that it is a sanitary establishment. Ah, no!... I do not believe, in fact, that the moral qualities, that the civic virtues, are acquired in the caserne. If they exist in a condition more or less latent in the recruit when he arrives, they may be developed in him through the care of the officers, as, moreover, they run the risk of shrivelling up if their cultivation is neglected. But the result of this tardy education is always sufficiently meagre. The evil natures, the vicious characters, accentuate their defects, instead of attenuating them, under the compression of discipline. It is not strong enough to master the souls rebellious at the bottom. It chastises misconduct; it has no authority over thought.... Therefore, it would be logical to diminish the duration of the military service strictly to the minimum necessary to learn the trade."
[Illustration: LIFE IN THE CASERNE: AN ESCAPADE.