The uniforms of the day were ill adapted to campaigning. The French soldier of the line wore white clothes with colored trimmings, varying according to his regiment. On his head was perched the triangular cocked hat of the period, standing well out over his ears, but hardly shading his eyes. Beneath it his hair was powdered, or rather, pasted; for the powder was sifted on to the wet hair, and caked in the process. The condition of the mass after a rainy night at the camp-fire may be imagined. In some regiments the wearing of a moustache was required, and those soldiers whom nature had not supplied with such an ornament were obliged to put on a false one, fastened with pitch, which was liable to cause abcesses on the lip. Sometimes a fine, uniform color was produced in the moustaches of a whole regiment by means of boot-blacking. Broad white belts were crossed upon the breast. The linen gaiters, white on parade, black for the march, came well above the knee, and a superfluous number of garters impeded the step. It was a tedious matter to put these things on; and if a pebble got in through a button-hole, the soldier was tempted to leave it in his shoe, until it had made his foot sore. Uniforms were seldom renewed. The coat was expected to last three years, the hat two, the breeches one.[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie militaire_, i. 93. _Encyc. méth. Art milit._ i. 589 (_Chaussure_) ii. 179. Susane, ix. (_Plates_). See also a very interesting little book by a great man, Maurice de Saxe, _Les Rêveries_.] All parts of the soldier's uniform were tight and close fitting. I think that this was learned from the Prussians. The ideal of the army as a machine seems to have originated, or at least to have been first worked out in Germany. Such an ideal was a natural consequence of the military system of the age. Of the soldiers of Frederick the Great only one-half were his born subjects. Other German princes enlisted as many foreigners as they could. In the French army were many regiments of foreign mercenaries. Nowhere was the pay high, or the soldier well treated. Desertion was very common. Under these circumstances mechanical precision became an invaluable quality. The soldier must be held in very strict bands, for if left free he might turn against the power that employed him.