The pay of a soldier is in no sense an adequate compensation for the risks he runs, the perils to which he voluntarily and willingly subjects himself, but it is a universal experience that although his pay is in no degree commensurate, yet the soldier whose pay is withheld instantly becomes insubordinate and mutinous, however high or patriotic the motives back of his enlistment.
Again the officers had, most of them, been degraded in rank.

Many of them had been retired on pittances which were not paid.

Those who were lucky enough to be retained in active service were superseded by superannuated, often incompetent old officers of the old royal army before the revolution, or by young scions of nobility with no knowledge or fitness to command veterans, to whom the gross-bodied, uninspiring, gouty old King did not appeal.

Again, the regimental names and associations had been changed and the old territorial or royal and princely designations had been reestablished; the Napoleonic victories had been erased from the battle-flags; the Eagles had been taken away.
The plain people of France were more or less apathetic toward Emperor or King.

France had been drained of its best for so long that it craved rest and peace and time to recuperate above everything else.