Since the French army has become national, the military caste is not so much an aristocratic caste as it is in England. It is difficult for an Englishman to realise the position of officers in a French garrison town. They live very much amongst themselves, and spend many of their leisure hours in a café chosen specially by them, and called “_le café des officiers_.” Some of them are admitted into local society, but on their individual merits or in consequence of family connections; the uniform is not the passport that it is, or used to be, in England. I remember how, on the arrival of a new regiment, the English squires in the neighbourhood would go and call upon the officers to give them a welcome, and would very soon ask them to dinner. Before long the officers were on sufficiently friendly terms to join in country amusements and invite themselves to lunch. If there was a ball, they were invited as a matter of course. This intimacy between military officers and the local gentry was strongly marked in the English society of the Wellingtonian age. In a French town there is no such ready welcome on the part of the leading inhabitants. The officers are treated like strangers staying in the hotels until some accident brings about an acquaintanceship. [Sidenote: The Army as a Career.] Still, although the military class in France is not one with the aristocracy, it is quite true that the military profession is the only career, in French opinion, for a gentleman of birth, unless he studies for the bar, which he generally does without any intent to practise. [Sidenote: The Official Class.] [Sidenote: The Prefect.] [Sidenote: Contempt for Republican Officials.] The official class of prefects, sub-prefects, and other members of the administrative hierarchy, form a caste quite apart from high society, which will not recognise office-holders under the Republic. I have known several of these officials who were thorough gentlemen, and had good private fortunes besides, but the higher classes ignored them as completely as if they had been personally unfit for society. The fact that the prefect is by virtue of his office the greatest personage in the department only makes him the more disliked. His rank is officially equal to that of an English lord-lieutenant, and he is more important in the sense of having more work to do and more real authority to exercise.[73] When, however, we compare the social position of the two we see how France is divided. England is not yet divided in the same way because the Crown makes the great official appointments, or at least seems to make them. There is not now any political authority left standing in France which commands the respect of the upper classes. They do not respect authorities emanating from the people. [Sidenote: _Noblesse_, _Bourgeoisie_, _Peuple_.] [Sidenote: Professional People.]