But a hundred years ago the soldiery, properly so called, consisted in France of what it now does with you--the scum of the population.

Picked up in low taverns, between a heap of crown-pieces and a glass of brandy, the soldier made himself more dreaded by the peasantry than by the enemy.

He seemed to be overpowered beneath the weight of the scorn of the country at large, the meanness of his present condition, and the impossibility of future promotion; and he revenged himself by forays upon the cellar and the farmyard.

He had his place among the scourges which desolated monarchical France.

Hear what La Fontaine says,-- "La faim, les creanciers, _les soldats_, la corvee, Lui font d'un malheureux la peinture achevee." You see that your soldiers of 1858 are angels in comparison with our _soudards_ of the monarchy.