(SR.)] [Footnote 6381: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France, in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.

Although pupils were admitted in the preparatory Schools very early, "our navy, engineer and artillery officers were justly esteemed the best instructed in Europe, as able practically as theoretically; the position occupied by artillery and engineer officers from 1792 in the French army sufficiently attests this truth.

And yet they did not know one tenth of those who now issue from the preparatory schools.

Vauban himself would have been unable to undergo the examination for admission into the Polytechnic School." There is then in our system "a luxury of science, very fine in itself, but which is not necessary to insure good service on land or at sea." The same in civil careers, with the bar, in the magistracy, in the administration and even in literature and the sciences.

The proof of this is found in the men of great talent who, after 1789, were prominent in the Constituent Assembly.