This general abolishing of social privileges to maintain the military strength of the nation naturally works with a good deal of friction. On the one hand are what might be called the inevitable tendencies of all human society to oppose it and to violate it; and on the other, the fierce watchfulness of the demagogues and the socialists to maintain it. M. "Job's" amusing sketch on page 126 of the arrival of a rich conscript at the caserne, adopts the evident and plausible view of the situation. The new soldier brings along his footman to carry his equipments, the officers of the regiment, colonel at the head, come out to welcome him, the sentry on duty is petrified with astonishment. This was supposed to be designed with reference to the celebrated M. Max Labaudy; but it is curiously at variance with the real facts in his case. This too-rich young man, the _Petit Sucrier_ of the Boulevards, was the son of a great sugar refiner, deputy to the Chamber from the department of Seine-et-Marne, and who left a fortune of more than two hundred millions of francs. The young man in question spent his portion with commendable freedom, but when he drew an unlucky number in the conscription he was declared eligible, though it was said at the time that he was already threatened with an affection of the lungs. He speedily fell ill; there was immediately raised such a violent demagogic outcry that his illness was feigned that "not one military commission dared to declare him unfit for service, he was transferred from one hospital to another, from Vernon to Rouen, from Rouen to Val-de-Grâce, from Val-de-Grâce to Amélie-les-Bains, where he died,--died of his millions, it may be said, for if he had been only a poor devil he would have been immediately mustered out." The young man, fully recognizing the disability under which he labored in the eyes of his cowardly and truckling superiors, wrote pathetic letters from his hospitals, regretting his fatal millions.