The life of the conscripts has been charged with blunting the finer sensibilities of those who have to undergo its rigours, but the charge cannot be allowed. For one might as well say that the engineer is rendered incapable of appreciating music, or the doctor has no conception of the beauty of a garden, by reason of the mathematical nature of the work accomplished by the one and the physical repulsiveness of much that the other has to perform. The Army and the training that it involves never injured a Frenchman yet, so long as the laws governing the Army received proper interpretation. In the end of the last century there were injustices prevalent both among men and officers, but the world and France gain wisdom with experience; the Republican Army as at present constituted is a growth of only forty years, and its predecessor, the Army of Napoleon the futile, showed by the war of 1870 what an immense amount of reform was necessary before French arms could regain their lustre. In the history of an army, forty years is a very short time, and, rather than cavil at the slowness with which reforms have been accomplished, it is due to France that one should admire the way in which the Army has been built up from so sorry a foundation into the great and effective machine of to-day. In civilian France, military ways persist. Habits of neatness and method, and accuracy in trifles, attest the military training that men have undergone. The very step of a Frenchman walking is reminiscent of the days when he was taught to march, and he has a respect for and knowledge of firearms which the average civilian of English life--unless he be addicted to some form of sport--never acquires. The Frenchman is never at a loss with a sporting gun, knows better than to point the weapon at the head of another man when loading, and in other ways betrays familiarity with the tool of a craft--one that many Englishmen regard as something to be handled carelessly or passed by as a thing of mystery. This is given only as an instance of the many ways in which the conscript system modifies men, for there are many ways in which modifications are effected. Some students of the subject question whether the French flexuousness and adaptability are results of the military system of the Republic or whether they are ingrained in the race independently of military training. Since practically every citizen is a soldier, this is a point that cannot be easily determined, but there can be no doubt that the characteristics in question are increased by military service.