"So you are lost to the army," said Despois. "Such an excellent officer--what a pity! I blame most the wretches who are governing us, for not understanding that, especially among us, a man cannot be replaced. A man! When they have one who wants to serve, they ought to do everything to keep him. In a campaign, one man is worth ten, twenty, thirty, a hundred, yes, a thousand others! One would think that our tyrants were afflicted with a vertigo that impels them to eliminate from the army the men of heart, that is to say, the loyalists, the men from whom their Republic has least to fear. The officer who refuses, as you did, to break down a chapel door, is the officer who doesn't conspire, because he has scruples, and those fools don't comprehend it!--I, too," he added, "I shall leave, and very soon. I don't think that I can stand it. Yesterday they made us march against the churches, to-morrow we shall be called upon for a campaign against the strikers. That is no more a soldier's work than the other. The army may be employed, in exceptional cases, to see that the laws are executed. But it must be one of the exceptional cases. The reason for the existence of the army is war, not police duty. Our politicians have a horror of war, of that manly and sanctified school of heroism. They have the degraded taste for armed demonstrations in the streets. Look you, they are talking of sending us next week to adjust matters at the forges of Apremont.--For heaven's sake, gentlemen, give us a policy of internal peace and of proud dignity externally!--Adieu, Claviers. I wish that we may meet again, you can guess where; foot to foot, charging the enemy. But will there still be any cavalry to follow us?--I am wrong. We have no right to despair, so near Vaucouleurs. What can you expect? It breaks your old captain's heart to see you go away."