It was during the period of office of M. Pelletan that the various departments of the navy lost cohesion and their productive capacity was greatly diminished. This minister was responsible for a species of socialistic propaganda which brought about the most deplorable results in so far as the efficiency of the navy was concerned. _Le Journal_, in its summary of the conclusions of the commission of enquiry into the state of naval administration, admitted that money had been wasted in petty errors and foolish blunders, in orders and counter-orders, on untried guns, on worthless boilers, on white powder which turned green, on shells which destroyed the gunners, on 16-centimetre turrets in which 19-centimetre guns had been placed. "The money," said this newspaper, "has passed through ignorant hands, and slipped through fools' fingers." Drastic changes were necessary to stop the alarming deterioration that was taking place, for the nation had not, for fully ten years, been getting anything near the full measure of sea-power to which it was entitled by the annual sums voted. Between 1900 and 1909 France expended 129 millions sterling on her navy, and in the same period Germany devoted 121 millions to that branch of national defence, and at the end of the decade it was found that the country spending the larger sum had dropped down to a fifth place in the scale of world sea-power, while with her smaller outlay Germany had risen to the second place. In other words, the French had paid for the second place and only realised the fifth! In this crisis Admiral Boue de Lapeyrere was appointed Minister of Marine, and was provided with a civilian Under-Secretary of State to act as assistant and be responsible with him for civil administration. Since this appointment much leeway has been made up, although the nation has had to mourn the loss of the _Liberte_, which blew up in the crowded naval harbour of Toulon, and has been alarmed more than once on account of the unstable quality of the powder with which the ships have been supplied. At last this danger appears to have been rectified. The French naval officer receives his training at the naval schools at Brest and Toulon and is generally very keen and capable. He does not enjoy hard conditions from the sporting instinct after the fashion so usual in the British navy, but his devotion to his work produces very efficient gunnery and admirable handling of submarine craft. For the lower deck the supply of the suitable class of bluejacket might be sadly deficient were it not for the seafaring populations of Brittany and Normandy. At Bologne there was living recently a wrinkled old grandmother who had forty grandchildren, of whom all the males were sailors or fishermen, while several of the girls had become fishwives or had married fishermen or sailors. France owes much to her little weather-beaten grandmothers of this type.