“you place things in the worst light, and you judge the situation somewhat after the manner of the Prophet Jeremiah.  The Holy Father has several excellent officers, both in the special corps and in the regiments of the line; and you have also some good soldiers.  Our officers, who are competent men, render justice to yours, both as regards their intelligence and their goodwill.  If I am astonished at anything, it is that the pontifical army has made so much progress as it has in the deplorable conditions in which it is placed.  We can discuss it freely because the whole system is under examination, and about to be reorganized by the Head of the State.  You complain that young gentlemen of good family do not throng to the College of Cadets in the hope of gaining an epaulette.  But you forget how little the epaulette is honoured among you.  The officer has no rank in the state.  It is a settled point that a deacon shall have precedence of a sub-deacon; but the law and custom of Rome do not allow a Colonel to take precedence even of a man having the simple tonsure.  Pray, what position do you assign to your Generals?  What is their rank in the hierarchy?”

“Instead of having our Generals in the army, we have them at the head of the religious orders.  Imagine the sensations of the General of the Jesuits at hearing a soldier announced by the honourable ecclesiastical title of General!”

“Well! there’s something in that.”

“In order to have commanders for our troops, without at the same time creating personages of too much importance, we have imported three foreign Colonels, who are permitted to perform the functions of General.  They even appear in the disguise of Generals, but they will never have the audacity to assume the title.”

“Capital!  Well, now with us there is not a scamp of eighteen who would engage in the army if he were told that he might become a Colonel, but never a General; or even a General, but never a Marshal of France.  Who, or what, could induce a man to rush into a career in which there is at a certain point an impassable barrier?  You regret that all your officers are not savants.  I admit that they have learnt something.  They enter the College without competition or preliminary examination, sometimes without orthography or arithmetic.  The first inspection made by our Generals discovers future lieutenants who cannot do a sum in division, a French class without either a master or pupils, and an historical class in which, after seven months of teaching, the professor is still theologically expounding the creation of the world.  It must indeed be a powerful spirit of emulation which can induce these young men to make themselves capable of keeping up a conversation with French officers.  You are astonished that they allow the discipline of their men to become somewhat relaxed.  Why, discipline is about the last thing they