"But, admitting that it obtain all the pay and all the consideration that you claim for it, still it will remain open to the remark of the President de Brosses, 'What are warriors who have never in their lives made war?'" "I admit it. The consideration accorded by all Frenchmen to the soldier, takes its source in the idea of the dangers he has encountered or may encounter. We behold in him a man who has sacrificed his life beforehand, in engaging to shed every drop of his blood at a word from his chiefs. If the little children in our country respectfully salute the colours--that steeple of the regiment--it is because they think on the brave fellows who have fallen round it." "Perhaps, then, you think we ought to send our soldiers to make war, before employing them as guardians of the peace?" "It is certain, Monsignore, that whenever one sees an old Crimean soldier who has strayed into one of the Pope's foreign regiments, the medal he wears on his breast makes him look quite a different man from any of his comrades. The corps of your army which the people has treated with the greatest respect, is the Pontifical Carabineers, because it was originally formed of Napoleon's old soldiers." "My friend, you do not answer my question. Do you require us to declare war against Europe for the sake of teaching our gendarmes to keep the peace at home?" "Monsignore, the government of his Holiness is too prudent to go in search of adventures. We are no longer in the days of Julius II., who donned the cuirass, and buckled on the sword of the flesh, and sprang himself into the breach. But why should not the Head of the Church do as Pius V., who sent his sailors with the Spaniards and Venetians to the battle of Lepanto? Why should you not detach a regiment or two to Algeria? France would, perhaps, give them a place in her army; they might join us in advancing the holy cause of civilization. Rest assured that when those troops returned, after five or six campaigns, to the more modest duty of preserving the public peace, everybody would obey them courteously. Vulgar footmen would no longer dare to make use of such expressions as one I heard yesterday evening at the door of a theatre,--'Stick to your soldiering, and leave servant's work to me!' They who despise them now, would be proud to show them respect; for nations have a tendency to admire themselves in the persons of their armies." "For how long?"