Elsewhere he remarks that the only feeling a soldier comes to cherish is resignation. “He knows very well that none of his superiors will ever say a kind word to him, and that his destiny is to pay for every annoyance they undergo. If he behaves himself he will be compelled to toil all day without evening recreation, and his only reward will be to be called an idiot by his comrades, to be punished for them, and not be allowed out oftener than they, and, in the case of a clever comrade, have his work forced upon him—for in the regiment the clever fellows do nothing, the fools do everything. Oh, the things I have seen! A black-hearted sergeant, who always chose for attack weak and sickly men; a Parisian workman, one of my comrades, on the brink of manslaughter or self-murder from persecution, not ill-natured, but destined to be sent to Africa for indiscipline or rebellion. Those who can’t hold their tongues or their tempers are greatly to be pitied. I saw one strike a chief, and he was right. I sometimes scorn myself for not having done so too. It makes a great difference, of course, when you have a good captain or a good lieutenant. The beginning is the hardest time in barracks. The cavalry and artillery regiments are the worst of all. You would not believe half the dreadful things I could tell you of them. The great evil of the army comes from this. The corporal can injure you; that is all he can do. He may punish, but he cannot reward. He can prevent you from going out, but he cannot give you leave of absence before the regulated hour. But if his power to do good is small, his power to do evil is immense. The general cannot give a leave if the corporal opposes it. In the army the punishment always suppresses the reward, but the reward never suppresses the punishment; and as the number of those who can punish is at least twenty times greater than that of those who can reward, nearly everything that happens is disagreeable. In fact, rewards are unknown. To show a curious example: leave of absence is not a reward; the privation of it is a punishment. A soldier’s paradise is outside the barracks. Offer him fifteen days of prison and after that fifteen days’ furlough, and he will not hesitate. What the corporal and sergeant wish to avoid is being bored, and so, to get out of work, they punish and govern by the terror they inspire. The men do not wash their clothes because they should be washed, but from fear the sergeant should find them dirty. The idea of duty does not exist in the army; it is the kingdom of fear, into which no ray of hope or justice penetrates.”