“I should not be a Frenchman, if I held such a belief.  I advised you to increase your soldiers’ pay, because hitherto your army has been recruited by money alone; and also because money is that which it costs you the least to obtain, and consequently that which you will the most willingly part with.  Well then, now that you have given me the few millions I required for the purpose of attaching your soldiers to the Pontifical Government, furnish me with the means of raising them in their own estimation and in that of the people.  Honour them, in order that they may become men of honour.  Prove to them, by the consideration with which you surround them, that they are not footmen, and that they ought not to have the souls of footmen.  Give them a place in the state; throw around their uniform some of the prestige which is now the exclusive privilege of the clerical garb.”

“Do you know what you are asking for?”

“Nothing but what is absolutely necessary.  Remember, Monsignore, that this army, raised to act in the interior of the Pontifical States, will serve you less frequently by the force of its arms, than by the moral authority of its presence.  And pray what authority can it possess in the eyes of your subjects, if the Government affect to despise it?”

“But, admitting that it obtain all the pay and all the consideration that you claim for it, still it will remain open to the remark of the President de Brosses, ’What are warriors who have never in their lives made war?’”

“I admit it.  The consideration accorded by all Frenchmen to the soldier, takes its source in the idea of the dangers he has encountered or may encounter.  We behold in him a man who has sacrificed his life beforehand, in engaging to shed every drop of his blood at a word from his chiefs.  If the little children in our country respectfully salute the colours—­that steeple of the regiment—­it is because they think on the brave fellows who have fallen round it.”

     “Perhaps, then, you think we ought to send our soldiers to
     make war, before employing them as guardians of the peace?”

“It is certain, Monsignore, that whenever one sees an old Crimean soldier who has strayed into one of the Pope’s foreign regiments, the medal he wears on his breast makes him look quite a different man from any of his comrades.  The corps of your army which the people has treated with the greatest respect, is the Pontifical Carabineers, because it was originally formed of Napoleon’s old soldiers.”

     “My friend, you do not answer my question.  Do you require us
     to declare war against Europe for the sake of teaching our
     gendarmes to keep the peace at home?”