"I am glad to hear it, Monsignore; and I will answer for it that a judicious, well-considered reform--slowly progressive, of course, as everything is at Rome--will produce excellent results in a few years. It is not in a day that you can expect to change the face of things; but you know the gardener is not discouraged by the certainty that the tree he plants to-day will not produce fruit for the next five years. The morals of your soldiers are, as you say, none of the best: I hear it said everywhere that an honest peasant thinks it a dishonour to wear your uniform. When you can hold out a future to your men, you need no longer recruit them from the dregs of the population. The soldier will have some feeling of personal dignity when he ceases to find himself exposed to contempt. These poor fellows are looked down upon by everybody, even by the servants of small families. They breathe an atmosphere of scorn, which may be termed the _malaria_ of honour. Relieve them, Monsignore; they ask nothing better." "Do you think, then, the means are to be found of giving us an army as proud and as faithful as the French army? That were a secret for which the Cardinal would pay a high price." "I offer it to you for nothing, Monsignore. France has always been the most military country in Europe; but in the last century the French soldier was no better than yours. The officers are pretty much the same, with this difference only,--that formerly the King selected them from the nobility, whereas now they ennoble themselves by zeal and courage. But a hundred years ago the soldiery, properly so called, consisted in France of what it now does with you--the scum of the population. Picked up in low taverns, between a heap of crown-pieces and a glass of brandy, the soldier made himself more dreaded by the peasantry than by the enemy. He seemed to be overpowered beneath the weight of the scorn of the country at large, the meanness of his present condition, and the impossibility of future promotion; and he revenged himself by forays upon the cellar and the farmyard. He had his place among the scourges which desolated monarchical France. Hear what La Fontaine says,-- "La faim, les créanciers, _les soldats_, la corvée, Lui font d'un malheureux la peinture achevée." You see that your soldiers of 1858 are angels in comparison with our _soudards_ of the monarchy. If, with all this, you still find them, not absolutely perfect, try the French recipe: submit all your citizens to a conscription, in order that your regiments may not be composed of the refuse of the nation, Create--" "Stop!" cried the prelate. "Monsignore?"