Nevertheless, despite all drawbacks, there was progress towards improvement in the French army. True, there was still shameful rascality on the part of contractors,[182] which was countenanced by Bouchotte under the protection of Robespierre, and which caused much suffering and desertion. The levy _en masse_ again had proved a failure; but, on the other hand, compulsion to personal service, without exemption of any kind, had forced a better class of recruit into the ranks; ◆1793 Nov. 22◆ and it was wisely determined to incorporate these new levies with the battalions at the front, which possessed officers and non-commissioned officers of experience to train them. Finally, the reorganisation of the army into demi-brigades, consisting each of two battalions of volunteers and one battalion of regulars, was, after long delay, decreed and gradually brought about. ◆1794 Jan. 8.◆ Innumerable useless corps were swept away; the establishments of existing corps were increased; and the law as to election of officers was practically, though tacitly, ignored.[183] ◆Feb. 12.◆ At the same time a succession of decrees forbade the attendance of deputations from regiments upon the Convention, strove to check abuses and waste in the matter of requisitions, and made a new regulation that no soldier should rise to any grade of command—from corporal to general—who could not read and write. ◆Feb 15.◆ All this wrought for discipline and efficiency, for many of the Colonels and Generals appointed by the Jacobins, being unable to read a map or even a letter, had brought about great confusion at the War Office and frequent disaster in the field.[184] At the same time, strenuous efforts were made to improve the cavalry, which had hitherto been absolutely useless; and its establishment was fixed at twenty-nine regiments of heavy and fifty-four of light cavalry, or ninety-six thousand men in all. The horse-artillery also, after but a single year of existence, was augmented to eight thousand men, and the field-artillery, including detachments for battalion guns, to twenty-six thousand men. The whole force of France at the beginning of 1794 reached six hundred thousand effective men, or about half of the figure which, from motives of policy or conceit, was invariably assigned to it by the orators of Paris.