It will make them admirable
citizens after the French mode, but not quite so good soldiers after
any mode. A doubt might well arise whether the conversations at
these good tables would fit them a great deal the better for the
character of mere instruments, which this veteran officer and
statesman justly observes the nature of things always requires an army
to be.
* Comme sa Majeste y a reconnu, non une systeme d'associations
particulieres, mais une reunion de volontes de tous les Francois
pour la liberte et la prosperite communes, ainsi pour la maintien de
l'ordre publique; il a pense qu'il convenoit que chaque regiment
prit part a ces fetes civiques pour multiplier les rapports et
reserrer les liens d'union entre les citoyens et les troupes.- Lest
I should not be credited, I insert the words, authorizing the troops
to feast with the popular confederacies.
Concerning the likelihood of this improvement in discipline by the
free conversation of the soldiers with municipal festive societies,
which is thus officially encouraged by royal authority and sanction,
we may judge by the state of the municipalities themselves,
furnished to us by the war minister in this very speech. He
conceives good hopes of the success of his endeavors toward
restoring order for the present from the good disposition of certain
regiments, but he finds something cloudy with regard to the future.
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