aids in bearing the fatigues and privations of a campaign. This happy change reacts for some time after the campaign, and the beneficial influence of the two last wars is still felt. They have polished away the rust of garrison life, and cured in a great measure that morbid susceptibility which formerly distinguished the French officer.

But, whether in camp or garrison, the French soldier has one imaginary enemy who disturbs his peace of mind, and with whom he is constantly at war. It is the Intendance, his providence. The most violent invectives and the most stinging satire are reserved against this hard-toiling body of functionaries. And yet how little do they deserve them! It is their care in peace which contributes so much to metamorphose the weakly recruit into a square-shouldered muscular little soldier; and their organisation and efficiency in times of war have been often an object of admiration and envy to other armies. But such is human nature. Were it not for this imaginary enemy, the French soldier, taken all in all, might certainly be looked upon as the happiest of his class all over the world.

CHAPTER V.

TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE AND ITS DRAWBACKS.

WITH the exception, perhaps, of the Celestial Empire, there is no country richer in proverbial wisdom than "le beau pays de France." The conclusion drawn from this exuberance might either be that Frenchmen act so wisely as to have found out by experience infallible rules of action in all the varied circumstances of life, or else that they act so foolishly as to require constant words of warning and advice. Were I to judge by one of the greatest favourites among these proverbs, I should certainly incline towards the latter conclusion, and set down French proverbs as rules written down to show how Frenchmen do not act.

"Aides-toi et Dieu t'aidera" seems indeed a charming satire, where every one hopes and trusts in Government initiative, Government employ, Government patronage, Government encouragement, Government subvention, and Government monopoly.

The rivers are periodically flooding their banks; swamps and marshes wait to be reclaimed; railways are to be constructed; roads are wanted; ports require improvements; agriculture demands draining, irrigation, and a better breed of animals; storms, hail, and drought

injure crops; fire consumes buildings; boats and nets are lost in fishing; manufactures and commerce are suffering from a crisis; the people have neither work nor bread and the Government is expected to remedy all these evils and shortcomings, besides thousands of others. It is to act the part of universal Providence, charged to help, to encourage, and to do the work of everybody—an impersonation of the god Vishnu, with numberless eyes, hands, and feet—or a revival of Figaro, the renowned barber of Seville. There seems a charm in its very name which is promise and encouragement.

It is so strange that this Oriental notion of the attributes and functions of Government should have taken strong root in the minds of those who claim the leadership in the civilisation of the West, that we may well ask the old question, Whether it is the Government which fashions the ideas and character of the people, or whether the Government is merely a reflex of the nature of the people?

There has been a succession of Governments in France, bearing the most different names and titles, but all of them animated by the same jealousy against individual freedom, and equally bent on centralising and meddling with everything. It is easy to understand that such a system of tutelage, long continued, has contributed to weaken individual energy, and to efface by degrees, in the minds of the people, the line of demarcation between individual exertion and Government interference. But either this line of demarcation must have been originally rather faint, or the individual energy weak, and consequently the idea of a tangible Providence on earth very attractive; for in all the violent changes within the last eighty years, we

never see the slightest trace of a reaction of individual feeling against this system of tutelage.

The rage is not against the pretension of the Government to act the part of Providence, but against the manner in which it has discharged this duty-against the favouritism which it showed for one class of the population, and the injustice which it committed towards another. Those who think that they have not their due share in the boons of terrestrial Providence, rise in arms to assert their claims. It is always "Jérome Paturôt in search of the best of Providences "-one which should be even-handed, and find the means of satisfying everybody.

The task is not easy, and all those who have tried their hands at it successively have failed. Good-natured paternal kings of the old school, assemblies of the Tiers Etât, national conventions of the people, consuls and emperors by the power of the sword, aristocratic kings by the grace of God, modest bourgeois kings by the will of the people, constitutional doctrinaires, philanthropic poets full of enthusiasm, democrats, socialists, communists, stern republican soldiers, king logs and king storks -and all in vain. Too much in one direction, or too little in the other :-no one has found the true equilibrium.

The last ten years have witnessed another effort to realise this ideal of a Government so long sought after by Frenchmen. It is on an unprecedented scale, and very different in its nature from any efforts made before. There is no blind feeling about, or wild rushing after, theories and plausible illusions. There is no shirking the task, or shrinking from consequences. It was from the beginning a premeditated and avowed determina

tion to undertake the task of French Providence, and make Frenchmen happy in spite of themselves./

There is a curious and little-known document extant which will be the astonishment of future generations, and an invaluable source of information for the historian of Imperialism. It is the Bulletin des Lois,' the list of laws and decrees made within the last ten years. Each year forms several large volumes, and adds hundreds of decrees and laws. The mass is so astonishing, that one scarcely knows whether to shudder at the work which was thought necessary to make Frenchmen happy, or to admire the fertility and zeal displayed in carrying out the colossal task. The united fertility of all the legislatures in Europe, taken together, has not been so productive in the last ten years, and how far more have they remained behind as to quality! Those little mendings and patchings of theirs seem wellnigh ridiculous by the side of such radical reorganisation. Great as the metamorphosis has been in Paris, it gives but a faint idea of the demolitions and rebuildings which have taken place in the remodelling of France. There are plenty of streets and quarters in Paris where axe and hammer have not yet penetrated, but there is no side of social existence which has been left untouched by these laws and decrees. Government, administration, system of education, arts, sciences, means of communication, army, navy, agriculture, industry, commerce, colonies, have all been more or less radically reformed, to make them fit into the new system of happiness devised for France. No régime ever watched with such anxious care the humour and disposition of this fantastic race, so easily tired. It forced upon them new ideas, showed them new pur