“This year, however,” said M. Bergeret, “he is learning in a barrack-square to put one foot before the other, and in him you see what our witty commandant, General Cartier de Chalmot, calls the primary tool of tactics, commonly known as a soldier. My pupil, M. Roux, is a warrior, and having a high-bred soul, he feels the honour of the position. Truth to tell, it is an honour which he shares at this identical moment with all the young men of haughty Europe. Your Neapolitans, too, rejoice in it, since they became part of a great nation.” “Without wishing in any way to show disloyalty to the house of Savoy, to which I am genuinely attached,” said the captain, “I feel that military service and taxation weigh so heavily on the Neapolitans as to make them sometimes regret the happy days of King Bomba and the pleasure of living ingloriously under an easy-going government. Neither tax nor conscription is popular with the Neapolitan. What is wanted is that statesmen should really open their eyes to the necessities of national life. But, as you know, I have always been an opponent of megalomaniac politics and have always deplored those great armaments which hinder all progress in Europe, whether it be intellectual, moral, or material. It is a great, a ruinous folly which can only culminate in farce.” “I foresee no end to it at all,” replied M. Bergeret. “No one wishes it to end save certain thinkers who have no means of making their ideas known. The rulers of states cannot desire disarmament, for such a movement would render their position difficult and precarious and would take an admirable tool of empire out of their hands. For armed nations meekly submit to government. Military discipline shapes them to obedience, and in a nation so disciplined, neither insurrections, nor riots, nor tumults of any kind need be feared. When military service is obligatory upon all, when all the citizens either are, or have been, soldiers, then all the forces of social life are so calculated as to support power, or even the lack of it. This fact the history of France can prove.” Just as M. Bergeret reached this point in his political reflections, from the kitchen close by there burst out the noise of grease pouring over on the fire; from this the professor inferred that the youthful Euphémie, according to her usual practice on gala days, had upset her saucepan on the stove, after rashly balancing it on a pyramid of coal. He had learnt by now that such an event must recur again and again with the inexorable certainty of the laws that govern the universe. A shocking smell of burnt meat filled the study, while M. Bergeret traced the course of his ideas as follows: