Winter is more especially devoted to the course of special theoretical instruction, which commences on the 1st November, and usually finishes on the 15th March, and the course of _special practical_ instruction is carried on during the summer from the 15th March to the 15th September. The second fortnight of September and the month of October are devoted to sham sieges and underground war, to the leveling of the works executed, and to the arrangement of magazines. SCHOOL FOR INFANTRY AND CAVALRY AT ST. CYR. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. CONDITIONS OF ADMISSION. STAFF. It will have been seen in the accounts of the Polytechnic School and the School of Application at Metz, in what manner young men destined for commissions in the artillery and engineers receive their previous education, and under what conditions appointments as officers in these two services are made in France. The regulations for the infantry, the cavalry, and the marines are of the same description. There are in these also the same two ways of obtaining a commission. One, and in these services the more usual one, is to rise from the ranks. The other is to pass successfully through the school at St. Cyr. Young men who do not enter as privates prove their fitness for the rank of officers by going through the course of instruction given, and by passing the examinations conducted in this, the principal, and putting aside the School of Application at Metz, the one Special Military School of the country. The earliest foundation of the kind in France was the Ecole Royale Militaire of 1751. Like most other similar institutions of the time, it was intended for the young nobility. No one was to be admitted who could not prove four generations of _Noblesse_. The pupils were taught free of charge, and might enter at eight years old. Already, however, some marks of competition are to be discerned, as the best mathematicians were to be taken for the Artillery and Engineers. Buildings on the Plain of Grenelle (the same which still stand, occupying one end of the present Champs de Mars, and retaining, though only used as barracks, their ancient name,) were erected for the purpose. The school continued in this form till 1776, when it was dissolved (apparently owing to faults of discipline,) and replaced by ten Colleges, at Sorrèze, Brienne, Vendôme, and other places, all superintended by ecclesiastics. A new Ecole Royale Militaire, occupying the same buildings as the former, was added in 1777. This came to an end in 1787; and the ten colleges were suppressed under the Republic. A sort of Camp School on the plain of Sablons took their place, when the war had broken out, and lasted about a year under the name of the Ecole de Mars.