The Emperor really took to the war-path soon after 1866. A great military council was assembled, and various measures were devised to strengthen the army. The principal step was the creation of a territorial force called the Garde Mobile, which was expected to yield more than half a million men. Marshal Niel, who was then Minister of War, attempted to carry out this scheme, but was hampered by an insufficiency of money. Nowadays, I often think of Niel and the Garde Mobile when I read of Lord Haldane, Colonel Seely, and our own "terriers." It seems to me, at times, as if the clock had gone back more than forty years. Niel died in August, 1869, leaving his task in an extremely unfinished state, and Marshal Le Boeuf, who succeeded him, persevered with it in a very faint-hearted way. The regular army, however, was kept in fair condition, though it was never so strong as it appeared to be on paper. There was a system in vogue by which a conscript of means could avoid service by supplying a _remplacant_. Originally, he was expected to provide his _remplacant_ himself; but, ultimately, he only had to pay a sum of money to the military authorities, who undertook to find a man to take his place. Unfortunately, in thousands of instances, over a term of some years, the _remplacants_ were never provided at all. I do not suggest that the money was absolutely misappropriated, but it was diverted to other military purposes, and, in the result, there was always a considerable shortage in the annual contingent.