“Your friend Deval,” answered M. Bergeret, “put a wrong construction on a warlike speech that I should be inclined to count among those which exalt men’s moral tone. Such speeches, in fact, arouse the spirit of emulation by exciting a desire to earn the good-conduct stripes, which confer on their wearers the right to make similar speeches in their turn, speeches which obviously stamp the speaker of them as head and shoulders above those humble beings to whom they are addressed. The authority of officers in the army should never be weakened, as was done in a recent circular issued by a War Minister, which laid down the law that officers and non-commissioned officers were to avoid the practice of addressing the men with the contemptuous ‘thou.’ The minister, himself a well-bred, courteous, urbane and honourable man, was full of the idea of the dignified position of the citizen soldier and failed, therefore, to perceive that the power of scorning an inferior is the guiding principle in emulation and the foundation-stone of all governance. Sergeant Lebrec spoke like a hero who is schooling heroes, for, being a philologist, I am able to reconstruct the original form his speech took. This being the case, I have no hesitation in declaring that, in my opinion, Sergeant Lebrec rose to sublimity when he associated the good fame of a family with the port of a conscript, when he thus linked the life of Number Five, even before he saw the light, with the regiment and the flag. For, in truth, does not the issue of all warfare rest on the discipline of the recruit? “After this, you will probably tell me that I am indulging in the weakness common to all commentators and reading into the text of my author meanings which he never intended. I grant you that there is a certain element of unconsciousness in Sergeant Lebrec’s memorable speech. But therein lies the genius of it. Unaware of his own range, he hurls his bolts broadcast.” M. Roux answered with a smile that there certainly was an unconscious element in Sergeant Lebrec’s inspiration. He quite agreed with M. Bergeret there. But Madame Bergeret interposed drily: “I don’t understand you at all, Lucien. You always laugh when there is nothing funny, and really one never knows whether you are joking or serious. It’s positively impossible to talk rationally to you.” “My wife reasons after the dean’s fashion,” said M. Bergeret, “and the only thing to do with either is to give in.” “Ah!” exclaimed Madame Bergeret, “you do well to talk about the dean! You have always set yourself to annoy him and now you are paying for your folly. You have also managed to fall out with the rector. I met him on Sunday when I was out with the girls and he hardly so much as bowed.” And turning towards the young soldier, she continued: “I know that my husband is very much attached to you, Monsieur Roux. You are his favourite pupil and he foretells a brilliant future for you.”