I am happy to record upon this subject the enlightened sentiments of a French General: “L’esprit de liberté tuera l’esprit militaire. Il ne sera plus permis aux princes de faire entr’égorger les peuples pour des intérêts de dynastie, ou pour des lubies d’ambition. Les gouvernants, quels que soient leur titre et l’origine de leur pouvoir, ne pourront subsister qu’en s’effaçant personnellement devant la volonté générale. Les nations, comparant les désastres de la bataille au mince profit de la victoire, ne pousseront plus le cri de guerre, hormis dans les circonstances très rares où il s’agira de vivre libre ou mourir.” (Foy, _Hist. Guerre Pénins._ liv. i.) Elsewhere he makes this acute criticism on the audacious designs of Napoléon. “Le despotisme avait été organisé pour faire la guerre; on continua la guerre pour conserver le despotisme. Le sort en était jeté; la France devait conquérir l’Europe, ou l’Europe subjuguer la France. * * La nature a marqué un terme au-delà duquel les enterprises folles ne peuvent pas être conduites avec sagesse. Ce terme l’empereur l’atteignit en Espagne, et le dépassa en Russie. S’il eût échappé alors à sa ruine, son inflexible outrecuidance (presumption) lui eût fait trouver ailleurs Baylen et Moscou.” Such is the impartial testimony of one of his own generals. The French “playing at soldiers” is an old vice, older than the days of Sir Thomas More, who thus pleasantly hits it off: “In France there is yet a more pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers, that are still kept up in time of peace, if such a state of a nation can be called a peace: and these are kept in pay upon the same account, it being a maxim of those pretended statesmen, that it is necessary for the public safety, to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness. But France has learned to its cost, how dangerous it is to feed such beasts.” Louis XIV. kept up a standing army of 440,000 men, and Napoléon had frequently more. The Gauls in modern times seem to have very much changed their nature, for so far from invading other countries, their reputation amongst the ancients was for remaining to fight at home, according to the obvious interpretation of a line in Pindar: ἐνδομάχας ἅτ’ ἀλέκτωρ.--_Olymp._ xii. “domi pugnans ceu Gallus.” To be sure, it is just possible that the learned Theban may have meant that humble domestic fowl, a cock. Erasmus reads “domi abditus.” There can be no doubt that a cock was meant, and unquestionably it is a bellicose bird. The passage from Pindar might be fairly rendered by the Latin adage: “Gallus in suo sterquilinio,” which it is needless to turn into the vernacular. There are symptoms of the French reforming this national vice, and I therefore shall not dwell upon a somewhat disagreeable subject.