I have left these notes of a young French soldier in their original English, with hardly an alteration. This is one of the anecdotes concerning military denseness he sends me: “In the town where my regiment was quartered there was an exhibition, and the directors of the exhibition, knowing how light a soldier’s purse is (a soldier’s purse is one of the most remarkable things I ever saw. It contains everything: thread, needles, pins, nails, white and black wax, buttons of six or seven sorts; but if you wish to dig so far as to find money, you are as likely as not to reach the ground), wrote to the colonel to say that a certain number of soldiers—sixty, I believe—could visit the exhibition free every day. In the beginning it was all right. The soldiers had as lief go to the exhibition as do exercise. They understood nothing; they were watched by a corporal, and could not go away before the regulated hour. After two weeks there were not sixty volunteers to be found, and after a month not twenty; after six weeks not even five. The colonel’s order was that each day sixty soldiers _could_ go to the exhibition, but the corporal understood _must_ go, and so every day sixty unfortunates were bidden to dress themselves in their best and go and be bored for two mortal hours between pictures and ploughshares, so that in the end the visit to the exhibition was used as a punishment. This surely was not the intention of the kind-hearted director.” Something must be said of how conscription is worked in France. Military life begins at twenty-one and ends at forty-five, which means that every Frenchman is subject to the military authorities during twenty-five years, three in the _Armée Active_, ten in the _Réserve_, six in the _Territoriale_, and six in the _Réserve de la Territoriale_. A youth, when he reaches twenty-one, draws a lot in February; he enters the barracks in November and remains there until September three years later, and is then guaranteed as a proper defender of his country. After that, for ten years, he forms part of the _Réserve_, and twice he must return to the regiment for twenty-eight days. In the _Territoriale_ he must serve once for fourteen days, and after that he is let alone unless war should break out, when he must shoulder his gun and knapsack, and go to the front with the rest. The drawing of lots takes place in the town hall, where the mayor sits with a big box filled with numbers written on bits of wood. Each youth draws out a number. Formerly this ceremony had a meaning, for the owner of a lucky number was exempt from military service, or only served a year. Now all must serve for three years, and the numbers count as nothing. Then comes the Revision Council, a most important thing. If a man passes he enters the barracks six months later; if not, he waits a year and begins again. If he is refused once, he serves only two years; if twice, one year; if three times, none at all.