For the service of the city of Paris, there is a special _corps d'élite_, the Garde Républicaine, comprising an infantry force of two thousand two hundred and ten men and one of one hundred and ninety mounted men. This is recruited from the sous-officiers, brigadiers, corporals, and soldiers of the active army under certain conditions. Each applicant must have served at least three years uninterruptedly in the regular army, have an irreproachable record, be able to read and write correctly, be at least twenty-four years of age and not over thirty-five, and have a stature of, at least, 1 mètre, 66 centimètres--1.70 mètres for the cavalry. The members of this force have special privileges of pay, pension, ability to compete for the grade of brigadier and succeeding ones, and of resigning from the service after having complied with the requirements of the recruiting law. Those who serve as guards at the theatres and the race-courses have an additional indemnity of from 75 centimes to 1 franc .25, according to the length and nature of the service. It appeared, from statements published during the strike in the capital in the autumn of 1898, that the soldiers and police, of all grades, received, on an average, less pay than the workmen whom they were protecting. [ILLUSTRATION: LA VIE À LA CASERNE: THE MORNING COFFEE. After a water-color by Georges Scott.] In the multiplicity of military regulations of all kinds, and of men who promulgate them and who are affected by them, there naturally appear from time to time some of the aberrations and eccentricities of ordinary human nature. Sometimes the French wit appreciates these oddities and makes much of them; and sometimes it completely fails to perceive them. One of the most distinguished of their generals, Poilloüe de Saint-Mars, enjoys quite a little reputation for the _cocasseries_ of certain of his orders. One of the most famous of these was that of the _soldat-tender_, designed to enhance the prestige of the infantry officer. For this purpose, he was authorized to select from among the men in his command one of the "most robust and alert," who would be the "most sympathetic and the most devoted to his officer, and who would follow him like his shadow." This soldier-tender, who "would be to his officer what the tender is to the locomotive," would carry his déjeuner and all his other baggage, being relieved from the ordinary company equipment,--the officer, thus lightened of everything but his weapons, would enjoy over his men the same physical and moral advantage that his comrades of the artillery and cavalry do by the excellence of their mounts and their "aureola of an orderly," and those of the marine by the superiority of their technical knowledge. "In campaign, the mission of the tender will accentuate itself and aggrandize itself. He will be authorized to halt if his officer fall wounded. He will assist him affectionately, will