"Never," writes Barbey d'Aurevilly, "has a man of action--of brutal action in the eyes of universal prejudice--more magnificently glorified the spirituality of war. Mechanics--abominable mechanics--takes possession of the world, crushing it under its stupid and irresistible wheels. By the action of newly discovered and improved appliances the science of war assumes vast proportions as a means of destruction. Yet here, amid the din of this upset modern world we find a brain sufficiently master of its own thoughts as not to permit itself to be dominated by these horrible discoveries which, we are told, would make impossible Fredericks of Prussia and Napoleons and lower them to the level of the private soldier! Colonel Ardant du Picq tells us somewhere that he has never had entire faith in the huge battalions which these two great men, themselves alone worth more than the largest battalions, believed in. Well, to-day, this vigorous brain believes no more in the mechanical or mathematical force which is going to abolish these great battalions. A calculator without the least emotion, who considers the mind of man the essential in war--because it is this mind that makes war--he surely sees better than anybody else a profound change in the exterior conditions of war which he must consider. But the spiritual conditions which are produced in war have not changed. Such, is the eternal mind of man raised to its highest power by discipline. Such, is the Roman cement of this discipline that makes of men indestructible walls. Such, is the cohesion, the solidarity between men and their leaders. Such, is the moral influence of the impulse which gives the certainty of victory.