I am aware that with our dissolute officials we might place in contrast noble types of moral qualities in other public functionaries, who are honourable and devoted to the public welfare; but this contrast would be a fresh condemnation of the society which despises the family to the extent of not making any distinction between these and those whose morals I have sketched. Did not this confusion of principles already exist in the Roman Empire at the period in which Corneille depicts it in his “_Polyeucte_”? To the profligacy of the student and the public official, let us add that of the soldier:— We should look into history in vain for a method of defending our native country, more opposed to its true interests than is our peace-army. Conformably to a memorandum of the Council of State (December 21st, 1808) declaring that it is for the good order of the army and the interest of society _that military men should not be able to contract inconvenient marriages, susceptible of altering the consideration due to their character_, the generals and colonels on active service and liable to be called out, half-pay officers, and reserve-conscripts, must obtain a special authorisation to marry, under penalty of being left unprovided for, of being reduced in rank, and of the loss of all rights and titles. We know that the marriages _of convenience_ consist in the settling the minimum of the marriage portion; but, in spite of these conditions, the official permission being only given to the heads, marriage is very exceptional in the army, and still more so in the imperial guard. Hence follow prostitution in towns, seduction and concubinage in the rural districts, and female degradation and the sacrifice of infant life everywhere. The government had, in this matter, even lost the sense of economy to the extent of almost requiring, after a five years’ active service, three years in the reserves _without marrying_. If the “Corps législatif” has, by its energetic opposition, procured three years reserve _with power to marry_, we must not congratulate ourselves too much upon this victory, for the relative advantage the man finds in irregularity of life, and the prospect of being again called out for active service, will keep him in those injurious bonds which banish family duties in the interests of the rights of profligacy.