By no portion of the people were these things gathered with such avidity and regarded with such all-absorbing interest as by the schoolboys of Paris. Every step of the "Grand Army" was watched with deep solicitude and commented upon with no doubtful criticism. They made themselves acquainted with the relative merit of each division, and could tell which arm of the service most contributed to the result of any particular battle. They collected information from all sources,--from accounts in newspapers, from army letters, from casual conversation with some maimed straggler fresh from the scene of war. Each boy, as he made his periodical visit to his family, brought back something to the general fund of anecdote. The fire that burned in their young bosoms was fed by tales of daring, and there was a halo round deeds of blood which effectually concealed the woe and misery they caused. There was but one side of the medal visible, and the figures on that were so bold and beautiful that no one cared for or thought of the ugly death's-head on the reverse. The fearful consumption of human life which drained the land, sweeping off almost one entire generation of able-bodied men, and leaving the tillage of the fields to the decrepitude of age, feebly aided by female hands, gave ample opportunity to gratify the ardent minds panting to exchange the tame drudgery of school and college for the limited, but to them world-wide, authority of the subaltern's sword and epaulet. There seemed to them but one road to advancement. The profession of arms was the sole pursuit which opened a career bounded only by the wildest dreams of ambition. What had been could be; and the fortunate soldier might find no check in the progressive honors of his course, until his brows should be encircled by the insignia of royalty. It required more than mortal courage for a young man to intimate a preference for some more peaceful occupation. A learned profession might be sneeringly tolerated; but woe to him who spoke of agriculture, or commerce, or the mechanic arts! There was little comfort for the luckless wight who, in some unguarded moment, gave utterance to such ignoble aspirations. Henceforth he was, like the Pariah of India, cut off from human sympathy, and the young gentlemen whose tastes and tendencies led them to prefer the more aristocratic trade of butchery felt that there was a line of demarcation which completely and conclusively separated them from him. This predilection for military life received no small encouragement from the occasional visit of some young Caesar, whose uniform had been tarnished in the experiences of one campaign, and who returned to his former associates to indulge in an hour of unalloyed glorification.