THE ARMY.
The nobility of France was essentially a military class. Its privileges
were claimed on account of services rendered in the field. The priests
pray, the nobles fight, the commons pay for all; such was the theory of
the state. It is true that the nobility no longer furnished the larger
part of the armies; that the old feudal levies of ban and rear-ban, in
which the baron rode at the head of his vassals, were no longer called
out. But still the soldier's life was considered the proper career of
the nobleman. A large proportion of the members of the order were
commissioned officers, and most officers were members of the order.
The rule which required proofs of nobility as a prerequisite to
obtaining a commission was not severely enforced in the reign of Louis
XV., and in the earlier years of his successor. In many regiments it was
usual to promote one or two deserving sergeants every year. In others
the necessary certificate of birth could be signed by any nobleman and
was often obtained from greed or good-nature. Moreover, an order of 1750
had provided that officers of plebeian extraction should sometimes be
ennobled for distinguished services. But in 1781, a new rule was
established. No one could thenceforth receive a commission as second
lieutenant who could not show four generations of nobility on his
father's side, counting himself. Thus were all members of families
recently ennobled excluded from the service, and no door was left open
to the military ambition of people belonging to the middle class;
although that class was yearly increasing in importance. Moreover,
strict genealogical proofs were required, the candidate for a commission
having to submit his papers to the royal herald. Exceptions were made in
favor of the sons of members of the military order of Saint Louis.
[Footnote: Ségur, i. 82, 158. Chérest, i. 14. Anciennes lois françaises,
22d May, 1781. The regiments to which the regulation applies are those
of French infantry (not foreign regiments), cavalry, light horse,
dragoons, and chasseurs à cheval. This would seem to exclude the
artillery and engineers. The foreign regiments appear to have been
included in a later order. Chérest, i. 24.]
But all nobles were not on the same footing in the army. Among the
regimental officers two classes might be distinguished. There were, on
the one hand, the ensigns, lieutenants, captains, majors, and
lieutenant-colonels, who generally belonged to the poorer nobility. They
served long and for small pay, with little hope of the more brilliant
rewards of the profession. They did their work and stayed with their
regiments, although leave of absence was not difficult to obtain in time
of peace. Their lives were hard and frugal, a captain's pay not
exceeding twenty-five hundred livres, which was perhaps doubled by
allowances. On the other hand were the colonels and second colonels,
young men of influential families, who, at most, passed through the
lower ranks to learn something of the duties of an officer. Their
commissions were procured by favor. There was scarce a bishop about the
court who did not have a candidate for a colonelcy, scarcely a pretty
woman who did not aspire to make her friend a captain. The rich young
men, thus promoted, threw their money about freely in camp and garrison.
Thus if the nobility had exclusive privileges, the court had privileges
that excluded those of the rest of the nobility, and in the very last
days of the old monarchy, these also were enhanced. The Board of War in
1788, decided that no one should become a general officer who had not
previously been a colonel; and colonels' commissions, besides being very
expensive, were given, as above stated, by favor alone. Thus on the eve
of the Revolution were the bands of privilege drawn tighter in France.
[Footnote: Ségur, i. 154. Chérest, ii. 90.] The colonels thus appointed
were generally not wanting in courage. The French nobility of all
degrees was ready enough to give its blood on the battle-field. Thus the
son of the Duke of Boufflers, fourteen years old, had been made colonel
of the regiment which bore the name of his family. The duke served as a
lieutenant-général in the same army. Fearing that the boy might not know
how to behave in battle, the father, on the first occasion, obtained
permission from the Marshal, Maurice de Saxe, commander of the army, to
accompany his son as a volunteer. The boy's regiment was ordered to
attack the intrenched village of Raucoux. The young colonel and his
father, followed by two pages, led their men against the intrenchments.
When they reached the works, the duke took his son in his arms and threw
him over the parapet. He himself followed, and both came off unhurt, but
the two pages were shot dead.[Footnote: Montbarey, i. 38.]
In America, as in Europe, the young favorites of fortune were ready
enough to fight. Such men as Lauzun, Ségur, or the Viscount of Noailles
asked nothing better than adventures, whether of war or love; but in
peace they could not be looked on as satisfactory or hard-working
officers. Yet they and their like continued to get advancement.
Ordinances might be passed from time to time, requiring age or length of
service, but ordinances in old France did not apply to the great. The
poorer nobility might grumble, but the court families continued to get
the good places. The lieutenant-colonels and the other working officers
of the army had but little chance of rising to be general officers. Even
before the order of 1788, promotion fell to the courtier colonels. The
baton of the marshals of France was placed in the hands only of the very
highest nobility. All over Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, armies were often commanded by men born to princely rank.
That this did not necessarily mean that they were ill commanded may be
shown by the names of Turenne and Condé, Maurice de Saxe and Eugène of
Savoy, Prince Henry of Prussia I and Frederick the Great.
While the higher commands were thus monopolized (or nearly so) by the
rich and powerful, the poorer nobility flocked into the army, to occupy
the subordinate ranks of commissioned officers. Sometimes they came
through the military schools. The most important of these had been
founded at Paris in 1750, by the financier Paris-Duverney. Here several
hundred young gentlemen, mostly born poor and preferably the sons of
officers, received a military education. The boys came to the school
from their homes in the country between the ages of nine and eleven,
rustic little figures sometimes, in wooden shoes and woolen caps, like
the peasant lads who had been their early playmates. They were taught
the duties of gentlemen and officers, cleanliness, an upright carriage,
the manual and tactics, and something of military science. Other
schools, kept by monks, existed in the provinces where the young
aspirants for commissions learned engineering and the theory of
artillery. But many young a noblemen entered their career by a process
more in accordance with youthful tastes. We find boys in camp in time of
war, evading the orders which forbade entering the service before the
age of sixteen. Children of twelve and thirteen are wounded in battle.
[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie militaire_, ii. 7, 45. Montbarey, i. 18.]
As the only form of active life in which most nobles could take part
was found in the army, there was always too large a number of
officers, and too great a proportion of the military expenses was
devoted to them. In 1787 hardly more than one in three of those
holding commissions was in active service. The number of soldiers
under Louis XVI. was less than a hundred and fifty thousand actually
with the colors. There were thirty-six thousand officers, on paper;
thirteen thousand actively employed. The soldiers cost the state
44,100,000 livres a year, the officers 46,400,000 livres.[Footnote:
Babeau, Vie militaire, i. 15; ii. 90, 145. Necker, De l'Administration,
ii. 415, 418.]
The relation between the officers and the soldiers of the old French
army was more intimate and kindly than that existing in any other
European army of the time. For both, their regiment was a home, and the
military service a lifelong profession. They had entered it young, and
they hoped to die in it. Their relation to each other had become a part
of the structure of their minds; a condition of coherent thought. A
soldier might rise from the ranks and become a lieutenant, or even a
captain, but such promotion was infrequent; few common soldiers had the
education or the means to aspire to it. On the other hand, the command
of a company was sometimes almost hereditary. The captain might be lord
of the village in which his soldiers were born. In that case he would
care for them in sickness, and perhaps even grant a furlough when the
private was much needed by his family at home. His own chance of
promotion was small. He expected to do the work of his life in that
company, among those soldiers, with perhaps his younger brother, or, in
time, his son, as his lieutenant. It would seem that in the years
immediately preceding the French Revolution these kindly relations were
in some measure dying out. The captain was no longer so closely
connected with his company as he had been. Officialism was taking the
place of those personal connections which had characterized the feudal
system. The gulf between soldiers and officers, if not harder to cross
for the ambitious, separated the commonplace members of each group more
widely from those of the other.[Footnote: Babeau, Vie militaire, i. 43,
189. Montbarey, ii. 272. Moore's View, i. 365.]
The private soldiers of King Louis XVI., who stood in long white lines
on parade at Newport, while their many colored flags floated above and
the officers brandished their spontoons in front, or who rushed in
night attack on the advanced redoubt at Yorktown, were not, like
modern European soldiers, brought together by conscription. They were,
nominally at least, volunteers. Unruly lads, mechanics out of work,
runaway apprentices, were readily drawn into the service by skillful
recruiting officers. Thirty years before, it had been the custom of
these landsharks to cheat or bully young men into the service. The raw
youth, arriving in Paris from the country, had been offered by a
chance acquaintance a place as servant in a gentleman's family, and
after signing an engagement had found himself bound for eight years to
serve His Majesty, in one of his regiments of foot. The young
barber-surgeon had waked from a carouse with the king's silver in his
pocket. Such things were still common in Germany. In France some
effort had been made to regulate the activity of the recruiting
officers. Complaints of force or fraud in enlistment received
attention from the authorities. The soldiers of Louis XVI., therefore,
were engaged with comparative fairness. The infantry came mostly from
the towns, the cavalry and artillery from the country. The soldiers
were derived from the lowest part of the population. Whether they
improved or deteriorated in the service depended on their officers. In
any case they became entirely absorbed in it. The soldier did not keep
even the name by which he had been known in common life. He assumed,
or was given, a _nom de guerre_ such as La Tulippe, La Tendresse,
Pollux, Pot-de-Vin, Vide-bouteille, or Va-de-bon-coeur. His term of
service was seven or eight years, but he was by no means sure of
getting a fair discharge at the end of it; and was in any case likely
to reenlist. Thus the recruit had, in fact entered upon the profession
of his life.[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie militaire_, i. 55, 136,
182. Mercier, x. 273. Ségur, i. 222; _Encyc. méth. Art milit._ ii. 177
(_Desertion_)]
The uniforms of the day were ill adapted to campaigning. The French
soldier of the line wore white clothes with colored trimmings, varying
according to his regiment. On his head was perched the triangular cocked
hat of the period, standing well out over his ears, but hardly shading
his eyes. Beneath it his hair was powdered, or rather, pasted; for the
powder was sifted on to the wet hair, and caked in the process. The
condition of the mass after a rainy night at the camp-fire may be
imagined. In some regiments the wearing of a moustache was required, and
those soldiers whom nature had not supplied with such an ornament were
obliged to put on a false one, fastened with pitch, which was liable to
cause abcesses on the lip. Sometimes a fine, uniform color was produced
in the moustaches of a whole regiment by means of boot-blacking. Broad
white belts were crossed upon the breast. The linen gaiters, white on
parade, black for the march, came well above the knee, and a superfluous
number of garters impeded the step. It was a tedious matter to put these
things on; and if a pebble got in through a button-hole, the soldier was
tempted to leave it in his shoe, until it had made his foot sore.
Uniforms were seldom renewed. The coat was expected to last three years,
the hat two, the breeches one.[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie militaire_,
i. 93. _Encyc. méth. Art milit._ i. 589 (_Chaussure_) ii. 179.
Susane, ix. (_Plates_). See also a very interesting little book by
a great man, Maurice de Saxe, _Les Rêveries_.]
All parts of the soldier's uniform were tight and close fitting. I think
that this was learned from the Prussians. The ideal of the army as a
machine seems to have originated, or at least to have been first worked
out in Germany. Such an ideal was a natural consequence of the military
system of the age. Of the soldiers of Frederick the Great only one-half
were his born subjects. Other German princes enlisted as many foreigners
as they could. In the French army were many regiments of foreign
mercenaries. Nowhere was the pay high, or the soldier well treated.
Desertion was very common. Under these circumstances mechanical
precision became an invaluable quality. The soldier must be held in very
strict bands, for if left free he might turn against the power that
employed him.
The connection between a rigid system in which nothing is left to the
soldier's intelligence or initiative, and a tight uniform, which
confines his movements, is both deep and evident. If a man is never to
have his own way, his master will inevitably find means to make him
needlessly uncomfortable. As the modern owner of a horse sometimes
diminishes the working power of the animal by check-reins and
martingales, so the despot of the eighteenth century buckled and
buttoned his military cattle into shape, and made them take unnatural
paces. But even under these disadvantages the French soldiers
surpassed all others in grace and ease of bearing. Officers were
sometimes accused of sacrificing the efficiency of their commands to
appearances. The evolutions of the troops involved steps more
appropriate to the dancing-master than to the drill sergeant.
[Footnote: Montbarey, ii. 272.] Such criticisms as these have often
been made on the French soldier by his own countrymen and by
foreigners. But those who think he can be trifled with on this
account, are apt to find themselves terribly mistaken.
The food of the soldiers was coarse and barely sufficient. The pay was
so absorbed by the requirements of the uniform, many of the smaller
parts of which were at the expense of the men, and by the diet, that
little was left for the almost necessary comforts of drink and tobacco.
The barracks, handsome outside, were close and crowded within. During
this reign orders were given that only two men should sleep in a bed. In
some garrisons soldiers were still billeted on the inhabitants. In
sickness they were better cared for than civilians, the military
hospitals being decidedly better than those open to the general public.
[Footnote: Lafayette told the Assembly of Notables in 1787 that the food
of the soldiers was insufficient for their maintenance. _Mémoires_,
i. 215. Ségur, i. 161.]
If we compare the material condition of the French soldier in the latter
years of the old monarchy with that of other European soldiers of his
day, we shall find him about as well treated as they were. If we compare
those times with these, we shall find that he is now better clothed, but
not better fed than he was then.[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie
militaire_, i. 374]
"The soldiers are very clean," writes an English traveler in France in
the year 1789; "so far from being meagre and ill-looking fellows, as
John Bull would persuade us, they are well-formed, tall, handsome men,
and have a cheerfulness and civility in their countenances and manner
which is peculiarly pleasing. They also looked very healthy, great care
is taken of them."[Footnote: Rigby, 13.]
The period of twenty-five years that preceded the Revolution was a time
of attempted reform in the French army. The defeats of the Seven Years'
War had served as a lesson. The Duke of Choiseul, the able minister
of Louis XV., abolished many abuses. The manoeuvres of the troops
became more regular, the discipline stricter and more exact for a time.
The Duke of Aiguillon ousted Choiseul, by making himself the courtier of
the strumpet Du Barry, and things appear to have slipped back. Then the
old king died, and Aiguillon followed his accomplice into exile. Louis
XVI. found his finances in disorder, his army and navy demoralized. The
death of the minister of war in 1775 gave him the opportunity to make
one of his well-meant and feeble attempts at reform. He called to the
ministry an old soldier, the Count of Saint-Germain, who had for some
time been living in retirement. The count had seen much foreign service,
was in full sympathy neither with the French army nor with the French
court, and was moreover a man who had little knack at getting on with
anybody. He had written a paper on military reforms, and thus attracted
notice. In vain, when in office, he attacked some crying abuses,
especially the privileges granted to favored regiments and favored
persons. While he disgusted the court in this way, he raised a storm of
indignation in the army by his love of foreign innovations, and
especially of one practice considered deeply degrading. This was the
punishment of minor offenses by flogging with the flat of the sword;
using a weapon especially made for that purpose. The arguments in favor
of this punishment are obvious. It is expeditious; it is disagreeable to
the sufferer, but does not rob the state of his services, nor subject
him to the bad influences and foul air of the guard-house. The
objections are equally apparent. Flogging, which seems the most natural
and simple of punishments to many men in an advanced state of
civilization, is hated by others, hardly more civilized, with a deadly
hatred. In the former case it inflicts but a moderate injury upon the
skin; in the latter, it strikes deep into the mind and soul. It would be
hard to say beforehand in which way a nation will take it. The English
soldier of Waterloo, like the German of Rossbach, received the lash
almost as a joke. The Frenchman, their unsuccessful opponent on those
fields, could hardly endure it. Grenadiers wept at inflicting the sword
stroke, and their colonel mingled his tears with theirs. "Strike with
the point," cried a soldier, "it hurts less!"
To some of the foreigners in the French service this sensitiveness
seemed absurd. The Count of Saint-Germain consulted, on the subject, a
major of the regiment of Nassau, who had risen from the ranks. "Sir,"
said the veteran, "I have received a great many blows; I have given a
great many, and all to my advantage."[Footnote: Ségur, i. 80. Mercier,
vii. 212. Besenval, ii. 19. Allonville. _Mem. sec._ 84. Montbarey,
i. 311. Flogging in some form and German ways in general seem to have
been introduced into the French army as early as Choiseul's time, and
more or less practiced through the reign of Louis XVI.; but the great
discontent appears to date from the more rigorous application of such
methods by Saint-Germain. Montbarey. Dumouriez, i. 370 (liv. ii. ch.
iii).]
The spirit of reform was in the air, and ardent young officers would let
nothing pass untried. The Count of Ségur tells a story of such an one;
and although no name be given, he seems to point to the brother-in-law
of Lafayette, the brave Viscount of Noailles.
"One morning," says Ségur, "I saw a young man of one of the first
families of the court enter my bedroom. I had been his friend from
childhood. He had long hated study, and thought only of pleasure, play,
and women. But recently he had been seized with military ardor, and
dreamed but of arms, horses, school of theory, exercises, and German
discipline.
"As he came into my room, he looked profoundly serious; he begged me to
send away my valet. When we were alone: `What is the meaning, my dear
Viscount,' said I, `of so early a visit and so grave a beginning? Is it
some new affair of honor or of love?'
"`By no means,' said he, `but it is on account of a very important
matter, and of an experiment that I have absolutely resolved to make. It
will undoubtedly seem very strange to you; but it is necessary in order
to enlighten me on the great subject we are all discussing; we can judge
well only of what we have ourselves undergone. When I tell you my plan
you will feel at once that I could intrust it only to my best friend,
and that none but he can help me to execute it. In a word, here is the
case: I want to know positively what effect strokes with the flat of the
sword may have on a strong, courageous, well-balanced man, and how far
his obstinacy could bear this punishment without weakening. So I beg you
to lay on until I say "Enough."'
"Bursting out laughing at this speech, I did all I could to turn him
aside from his strange plan, and to convince him of the folly of his
proposal; but it was useless. He insisted, begged and conjured me to do
him this pleasure, with as many entreaties as if it had been a question
of getting me to render him some great service.
"At last I consented and resolved to punish his fancy by giving him his
money's worth. So I set to work; but, to my great astonishment, the
sufferer, coldly meditating on the effect of each blow, and collecting
all his courage to support it, spoke not a word and constrained himself
to appear unmoved; so that it was only after letting me repeat the
experiment a score of times that he said: `Friend, it is enough. I am
contented; and I now understand that this must be an efficacious method
of conquering many faults.'
"I thought all was over; and up to that point the scene had seemed to me
simply comic; but just as I was about to ring for my valet to dress me,
the Viscount, suddenly stopping me, said: `One moment, please; all is
not finished; it is well that you should make this experiment, too.'
"I assured him that I had no desire to do so, and that it would by no
means change my opinion, which was entirely adverse to an innovation so
opposed to the French character.
"`Very well,' answered he, `but I ask it not for your sake but for mine.
I know you; although you are a perfect friend, you are very lively, a
little fond of poking fun, and you would perhaps make a very amusing
story of what has just happened between us, at my expense, among your
ladies.'
"`But is not my word enough for you?' I rejoined.
"`Yes,' said he, `in any more serious matter; but anyway, if I am only
afraid of an indiscretion, that fear is too much. And so, in the name of
friendship, I beg you, set me completely at ease on that point by taking
back what you have been kind enough to lend me so gracefully. Moreover,
I repeat it, believe me, you will profit by it and be glad to have
judged for yourself this new method that is so much discussed.'
"Overcome by his prayers, I let him take the fatal weapon; but after he
had given me the first stroke, far from imitating his obstinate
endurance, I quickly called out that it was enough, and that I
considered myself sufficiently enlightened on this grave question. Thus
ended this mad scene; we embraced at parting; and in spite of my desire
to tell the story, I kept his secret as long as he pleased."[Footnote:
Ségur, i. 84.]
The discipline of the French army, like that of other bodies, military
and civil, depended much less on regulations than on the individual
character of the men in command for the time being. France was engaged
in but one war during the reign of Louis XVI., and in that war the
land forces were occupied only in America. "The French discipline is
such," writes Lafayette to Washington from Newport, "that chickens and
pigs walk between the lines without being disturbed, and that there is
in the camp a cornfield of which not one leaf has been touched." And
Rochambeau tells with honest pride of apples hanging on the trees
which shaded the soldier's tents. "The discipline of the French army,"
he says, "has always followed it in all its campaigns. It was due to
the zeal of the generals, of the superior and regimental officers, and
especially to the good spirit of the soldier, which never failed." But
Rochambeau was a working general, and Lafayette had done his best in
France that, as far as was possible, the French commander in America
should have working officers under him. Neither in war nor in peace
have the French always been famous for their discipline; and the
discontent which had been caused by the changes above mentioned had
not tended to strengthen it in the closing years of the monarchy.
"Whatever idea I may have formed of the want of discipline and of the
anarchy which reigned among the troops," says Besenval, "it was far
below what I found when I saw them close," and circumstances confirm
the testimony of this not over-trustworthy witness.[Footnote:
Washington, vii. 518. Rochambeau, i. 255, 314. Fersen,
i. 39. 67. Besenval, ii. 36.]
It was in the latter part of the previous reign that the adventure of
the Count of Bréhan had taken place; but the story is too characteristic
to be omitted, and the spirit which it showed continued to exist down to
the very end of the old monarchy.
The Count of Bréhan, after serving with distinction in the Seven Years'
War, had retired from the army, and devoted his time to society and the
fine arts. He was called to Versailles one day by the Duke of Aiguillon,
prime minister to Louis XV., his friend and cousin. "I have named you to
the king," said the duke, "as the only man who would be able to bring
the Dauphiny regiment into a state of discipline. The line officers, by
their insubordinate behavior, have driven away several colonels in
succession. If I were offering you a favor, you might refuse; but this
is an act of duty, and I have assured the king that you would undertake
it."
"You do me justice," answered Bréhan. "I will take the command of the
regiment, but I must make three conditions. I must have unlimited power
to reward and punish; I must be pardoned if I overstep the regulations;
and if I succeed in bringing the regiment into good condition, I am not
to be obliged to keep it for more than a year."
His conditions granted, Bréhan set out for Marseilles, where the
regiment was quartered. On his arrival in that city, he put up at a
small and inconspicuous inn, and, dressed as a civilian, made his way on
foot to a coffee-house, which was said to be a favorite lounging-place
of the officers of the Dauphiny regiment. Taking a seat, he listened to
the conversation going on about him, and soon made out that the
insubordinate subalterns were talking about their new colonel, and of
the fine tricks they would play him on his arrival. Picking out two
young officers who were making themselves particularly conspicuous, he
interrupted their conversation.
"You do not know," he says, "the man whom you want to drive away. I
advise you to mind what you do, or you may get into a scrape."
"Who is this jackanapes that dares to give us advice?"
"A man who will not stand any rudeness, and who demands satisfaction!"
cries Bréhan, unbuttoning his civilian's coat and showing his military
order of Saint Louis.
So he goes out with the young fellows, and all the way to the place
where they are to fight, he chaffs and badgers them. This puts them more
and more out of temper, so that when they reach the ground they are very
much excited, while he is perfectly cool. He wounds them one after the
other; then, turning to the witnesses: "Gentlemen," says he, "I believe
I have done enough, for a man who has been traveling night and day all
the way from Paris. If anybody wants any more, he can easily find me. I
am not one of the people who get out of the way."
Thereupon he leaves them, goes back to his inn, puts on his uniform,
calls on the general commanding the garrison, and sends orders to the
officers of the Dauphiny regiment to come and see him. These presently
arrive, and are thoroughly astonished when they recognize the man whom
they met in the coffee-house, and who has just wounded two of their
comrades. But Bréhan pretends not to know any of them, speaks to all
kindly, tells them of the severe orders that he bears in case of
insubordination, and expresses the hope and conviction that there will
be no trouble. He then asks if all the officers of the regiment are
present. They answer that two gentlemen are ill. "I will go to see
them," says the new colonel, "and make sure that they are well taken
care of." He does in fact visit his late adversaries, and finds them in
great trepidation. They try to make excuses, but Bréhan stops them. "I
do not want to know about anything that happened before I took command,"
he says, "and I am quite sure that henceforth I shall have only a good
report to make to the king of all the officers of my regiment, with whom
I hope to live on the best of terms."
By this firm and conciliatory conduct, the Count of Bréhan inspired the
Dauphiny regiment with respect and affection. He restored its discipline
and left it when his service was over, much regretted by all its
officers.[Footnote: Allonville, i. 162.]
The lieutenants of the French army were united in an association called
the Calotte. The legitimate object of this society was to lick young
officers into shape, by obliging them to conform to the rules of
politeness and proper behavior, as understood by their class. For this
purpose the senior lieutenant of each regiment was the chief of the
regimental club, and there was a general chief for the whole army.
Offenses against good manners, faults of meanness, or oddity of
behavior, were discouraged by admonitions, given privately by the chief,
or publicly in the convivial meetings of the club. Moral pressure might
be carried so far in an aggravated case, as to cause the culprit to
resign his commission. The society in fact represented an organized
professional spirit; and although not recognized by the regulations, was
favored by the superior officers.[Footnote: Calotte=scull cap, here
fool's-cap. Concerning this society, see a series of _feuilletons_
in the _Moniteur Universel,_ Nov. 25th to 30th, 1864 by Gen.
Ambert; also _Encyclopédie méthodique, Art militaire. Militaire,_
iv. 101-103 (article _Calotte_); Ségur, i. 132.]
When discipline was relaxed, the Calotte assumed too great powers. Not
content with moral means, it undertook to enforce its decrees by
physical ones; and it extended its jurisdiction far above the rank of
lieutenant.
At the outbreak of the war between France and England in 1778, two camps
were formed in Normandy and Brittany for the purpose of training the
army, and perhaps with some intention of making a descent on the English
coast. The young French officers swarmed to these camps and divided
their time between drill and pleasure. On one occasion, seats had been
reserved on a hill for some Breton ladies, who were to see the
manoeuvres. Two colonels, escorting two ladies of the court who had
recently arrived from Paris, undertook to appropriate the chairs for
their companions. A squabble such as is common on such occasions was the
result.
The Count of Ségur, above mentioned, was acting as aide-de-camp to the
commanding general. A few days after the quarrel about the chairs, just
as he was going to begin a game of prisoners' base, two officers who
were his friends informed him privately that the Calotte had ordered the
two colonels who had given offense on that occasion to be publicly
tossed in blankets and that the sentence was about to be carried out.
Ségur, to gain time, ordered the drummers to beat an alarm. The game was
broken up, every officer ran to his colors, and the aide-de-camp
hastened to explain the matter to the astonished general. The proposed
punishment was deferred and finally prevented; but the escape from a
scandalous breach of discipline had been a narrow one.
As the Revolution drew nearer, its spirit became evident in the army.
The Count of Guibert, the most talented and influential member of the
Board of War in 1788, was the object of satire and epigram. The younger
officers conspired to spoil the success of his manoeuvres. The
experiments that had been tried, the frequent changes in the
regulations, had unsettled their ideas. In their reaction against the
disagreeable rigor of German discipline, they protested that English
officers alone, and not the machine-like soldiers of a despot, were the
models for freemen. The common soldiers caught the spirit of
insubordination from those who commanded them. Especially, the large
regiment of French Guards, a highly privileged body, permanently
quartered in Paris, was infected with the spirit of revolt. Its men were
conspicuous in the early troubles of the Revolution, acting on the side
of the mob.[Footnote: Chérest, i. 552. Miot de Mélito, i. 3.]
The militia of old France does not call for a long notice. It consisted
of from sixty to eighty thousand men, whose chief duty was in garrison
in time of war, and who during peace were not kept constantly together,
but assembled from time to time for drill. As the term of service was
six years, the number of men drawn did not exceed fifteen thousand
annually. This was surely no great drain on a population of twenty-six
millions. Militia duty was greatly hated, however. This appears to have
been because men did not volunteer for it, but were drafted; and because
many persons were exempted from the draft. This immunity covered not
only the sons of aged parents who were dependent on them for support,
but privileged persons of all sorts, from apothecaries to advocates,
gentlemen and their servants and game-keepers. The burden was thus
thrown entirely on the poorer peasantry.[Footnote: Broc, i. 117;
Babeau, _Le Village_, 259.]
The navy in the time of Louis XVI. reached a high state of efficiency.
The war of 1778 to 1783 was in great measure a naval war, and although
the French and their allies were worsted in some of the principal
actions, the general result may be held to have been favorable to them.
The navy at the outbreak of hostilities consisted of about seventy ships
of the line, and as many frigates and large corvettes, with a hundred
smaller vessels. These ships were built on admirable models, for the
French marine architects were well-trained and skillful; but the
materials and the construction were not equal in excellence to the
design. The invention of coppering the ships' bottoms, and thus adding
to their speed, although generally practiced in England, had been
applied in France only to the smaller part of the navy. The French,
however, had an advantage over the English in the fact that ships of the
same nominal class were in reality larger and broader of beam among the
former than among the latter, so that the French were sometimes able to
fight their lower batteries in rough water, when the English had to keep
their lower ports closed.
The naval officers of France were almost all noblemen, and received a
careful professional training. Yet the practice of transferring officers
of high rank from the army to the navy had not been completely
abandoned. Thus d'Estaing, who commanded with little distinction on the
North American coast in 1778, was no sailor, but a lieutenant-général,
artificially turned into a vice-admiral. Such cases, however, were not
common, and in general the French commanders erred rather by adhering
too closely to naval rule, than by want of professional training. In the
navy, as elsewhere, no great original talent was developed during this
reign, which was a time of expectation rather than of action.
The men, like the officers, were good and well-trained, except when the
lack of sailors obliged the government to employ soldiers on shipboard.
It is noticeable that the seamen bore the rope's end with equanimity,
although the landsmen were so much offended at flogging with the flat of
the sword. Nor do I find any complaint of want of discipline at sea.
The administration of naval affairs was less satisfactory than the ships
or the crews. The magazines were not well provided; and the stores were
probably bad, for the fleets were subject to epidemics.[Footnote:
Chabaud-Arnault, 189, 196, 214. Charnoek, iii. 222, 282 Ségur, i. 138.
Chevalier.]
In general the navy appears to have suffered less than the army from the
fermentation of the public mind. Marine affairs must always remain the
concern of a special class of men, cut off by absorbing occupations from
the interests and sympathies of the rest of mankind.