The material of the French Army, then, is pretty fine stuff, but it has to be treated with a delicate discrimination and with that peculiar French quality known as _doigté_. We have seen that town and country, side by side in the same unit, must be dealt with perspicaciously by the officer. Anything that looks like mere routine and a mere waste of time and energy is particularly obnoxious to the sharp fellow from the large centres of population. "A quoi bon tout ça?" he asks, with a scarcely concealed irritation. He is difficult to lead unless he comprehends the military utility of the order. Once his sympathetic intelligence has been gained, he puts his soul into the work. The peasant farmer, on the other hand, accepts everything with the stolid passivity of those who work upon the land. He does not suffer moral torture from the feeling that he is wasting his time. Is he not out in the open? And the food is good. His intelligence does not rebel against red tape, which is so distasteful to his lively contemporary from the town workshops. And so the commander has to show discretion in his manner of utilising the human material to his hand. The mechanic probably will prove an excellent scout and give a vivid account of the country through which he passes and the enemy whom he has sighted. His interest has been excited, and all his qualities of resourcefulness and ready adaptability come to the surface. He feels that he is being worthily employed, and is happy in the knowledge that he has been of service to his superior. But put him to guard a haystack and he is much less happy. That is a peasant’s job, he feels. And the peasant, indeed, is perfectly at home in front of the hay; his nostrils dilate with pleasure at the sweet scent of it; it makes him think of his own bit of grass growing there in Brittany on one of those shining slopes where the gorse flames.