What I heard in St.-Omer of the officers stationed there was particularly interesting. There is a large garrison, and the greatest pains are taken by the officers not only with the military discipline, but with the schooling and general conduct of the troops. My own observation leads me to think this true, not of St.-Omer only, but of all the considerable garrison towns which I have visited in France during the past six or seven years. The old type of swashbuckling, absinthe-tippling, rakehelly French officer of whom, during the last years of the Empire, one saw and heard so much, seems to have passed away into history and literature. However it may be with the 'gaiter-buttons' in the next great war, I do not believe the staff of the next invading army will have much to teach the French officers of to-day, either about the principles of scientific warfare or about the topography of France.
I am inclined to think that there are more French officers in St.-Omer alone to-day who can read and understand German than there were in all France in 1870. The _morale_ and carriage of the soldiers, too, are distinctly higher. The calling of men of all ranks and conditions under the colours has necessarily raised the moral and social level of the rank and file as well as of the officers; and it is quite certain that the army holds a higher place in the estimation of the better classes in France than it used to hold. M. de la Gorce cited to me several instances, here at St.-Omer, of young ladies of excellent family, three of them at least considerable heiresses, who have married young officers of merit solely because they were officers of merit, and who have gladly turned their backs on the flutter and glitter of fashionable Paris to share the quiet, unpretending quarters, and take a sympathetic interest in the serious military career of their husbands in this rather out-of-the-way garrison town.
I do not find M. de la Gorce sanguine as to any early solution of the political problems with which France is still wrestling after a hundred years. He makes no secret of his conviction that nothing but a return to the constitutional monarchy can give the country lasting peace at home, or real influence abroad. But his impression seems to be that time alone can bring this about. He would have the royalists unfurl their banner, go into the elections with a plain declaration of their political creed, and await the progress of events. He cited, as a proof of the wisdom of this policy, the steady advance made by the Republicans after a mere handful of them came into the imperial legislature. They grew from five to thirty, simply because they stood firmly on their own principles, while the majority were disturbed and uncertain. The principle of the hereditary constitutional monarchy, he thought, should be plainly affirmed and presented to the French people, as their only real safeguard against the incessant disturbance and displacement of the executive machinery which results from the election of an executive chief.