Never had the officers of the army been under such strict and minute supervision; promotion went, by seniority, by “the order on the list,” as the phrase then was, without any favor for rank or birth; commanders were obliged to attend to their corps.  “Sir,” said Louvois one day to M. de Nogaret, “your company is in a very bad state.”  “Sir,” answered Nogaret, “I was not aware of it.”  “You ought to be aware,” said M. de Louvois:  “have you inspected it?” “No, sir,” said Nogaret.  “You ought to have inspected it, sir.”  “Sir, I will give orders about it.”  “You ought to have given them.  A man ought to make up his mind, sir, either to openly profess himself a courtier or to devote himself to his duty when he is an officer.”  Education in the schools for cadets, regularity in service, obligation to keep the companies full instead of pocketing a portion of the pay in the name of imaginary soldiers who appeared only on the registers, and who were called dummies (passe-volants), the necessity of wearing uniform, introduced into the army customs to which the French nobility, as undisciplined as they were brave, had hitherto been utter strangers.

Artillery and engineering were developed under the influence of Vauban, “the first of his own time and one of the first of all times” in the great art of besieging, fortifying, and defending places.  Louvois had singled out Vauban at the sieges of Lille, Tournay, and Douai, which he had directed in chief under the king’s own eye.  He ordered him to render the places he had just taken impregnable.  “This is no child’s play,” said Vauban on setting about the fortifications of Dunkerque, “and I would rather lose my life than hear said of me some day what I hear said of the men who have preceded me.”  Louvois’ admiration was unmixed when he went to examine the works.  “The achievements of the Romans which have earned them so much fame show nothing comparable to what has been done here,” he exclaimed; “they formerly levelled mountains in order to make highroads, but here more than four hundred have been swept away; in the place where all those sand-banks were there is now to be seen nothing but one great meadow.  The English and the Dutch often send people hither to see if all they have been told is true; they all go back full of admiration at the success of the work and the greatness of the master who took it in hand.”  It was this admiration and this dangerous greatness which suggested to the English their demands touching Dunkerque during the negotiations for the peace of Utrecht.

The honesty and moral worth of Vauban equalled his genius; he was as high-minded as he was modest; evil reports had been spread about concerning the contractors for the fortifications of Lille.  Vauban demanded an inquiry.  “You are quite right in thinking, my lord,” he wrote to Louvois, to whom he was united by a sincere and faithful friendship, “that, if you do not examine into this affair, you cannot