He himself, although a liberal, finds reasons which justify to the legislative body this unpopular practice;[6163] he replies to the objections and alarm of the parents "that it is favorable to order, without which there are no good studies," and moreover "it accustoms the pupils to carrying and using arms, which shortens their work and accelerates their promotion on being summoned by the conscription to the service of the State." The tap of the drum, the attitude in presenting arms, marching at command, uniform, gold lace, and all that, in 1811, becomes obligatory, not only for the lycees and colleges, but again, and under the penalty of being closed, for private institutions.[6164] At the end of the Empire, there were in the departments which composed old France 76,000 scholars studying under this system of stimulation and constraint.

"Our masters," as a former pupil is to say later on, "resembled captain-instructors, our study-rooms mess--rooms, our recreations drills, and our examinations reviews."[6165] The whole tendency of the school inclines it towards the military and merges therein on the studies being completed--sometimes, even, it flows into it before the term is over.

After 1806,[6166] the anticipated conscriptions take youths from the benches of the philosophy and rhetoric classes.

After 1808, ministerial circulars[6167] demand of the lycees boys (des enfants de bonne volonte), scholars of eighteen and nineteen who "know how to manoeuvre," so that they may at once be made under-officers or second-lieutenants; and these the lycees furnish without any difficulty by hundreds.

In this way, the beardless volunteer entering upon the career one or two years sooner, but gaining by this one or two grades in rank.--"Thus," says a principal[6168] of one of the colleges, "the brain of the French boy is full of the soldier.