"You ought to have inspected it, sir." "Sir, I will give orders about it." "You ought to have given them.

A man ought to make up his mind, sir, either to openly profess himself a courtier or to devote himself to his duty when he is an officer." Education in the schools for cadets, regularity in service, obligation to keep the companies full instead of pocketing a portion of the pay in the name of imaginary soldiers who appeared only on the registers, and who were called dummies (_passe-volants_), the necessity of wearing uniform, introduced into the army customs to which the French nobility, as undisciplined as they were brave, had hitherto been utter strangers.
Artillery and engineering were developed under the influence of Vauban, "the first of his own time and one of the first of all times" in the great art of besieging, fortifying, and defending places.

Louvois had singled out Vauban at the sieges of Lille, Tournay, and Douai, which he had directed in chief under the king's own eye.

He ordered him to render the places he had just taken impregnable.

"This is no child's play," said Vauban on setting about the fortifications of Dunkerque, "and I would rather lose my life than hear said of me some day what I hear said of the men who have preceded me." Louvois' admiration was unmixed when he went to examine the works.