When l’Etat Militaire for the year 13 (a work containing the official statement of our military forces) was presented to Bonaparte by Berthier, the latter said:  “Sire, I lay before Your Majesty the book of the destiny of the world, which your hands direct as the sovereign guide of the armies of your empire.”  This compliment is a truth, and therefore no flattery.  It might as justly have been addressed to a Moreau, a Macdonald, a Le Courbe, or to any other general, as to Bonaparte, because a superior number of well disciplined troops, let them be well or even indifferently commanded, will defeat those inferior in number.  Three to one would even overpower an army of giants.  Add to it the unity of plans, of dispositions, and of execution, which Bonaparte enjoys exclusively over such a great number of troops, while ten, or perhaps fifty, will direct or contradict every movement of his opponents.  I tremble when I meditate on Berthier’s assertion; may I never live to see it realized, and to see all hitherto independent nations prostrated, acknowledge that Bonaparte and destiny are the same, and the same distributor of good and evil.

One of the bad consequences of this our military education of youth is a total absence of all religious and moral lessons.  Arnaud had, last August, the courage to complain of this infamous neglect, in the National Institute.  “The youth,” said he, “receive no other instruction but lessons to march, to fire, to bow, to dance, to sit, to lie, and to impose with a good grace.  I do not ask for Spartans or Romans, but we want Athenians, and our schools are only forming Sybarites.”  Within twenty-four hours afterwards, Arnaud was visited by a police agent, accompanied by two gendarmes, with an order signed by Fouche, which condemned him to reside at Orleans, and not to return to Paris without the permission of the Government,—­a punishment regarded here as very moderate for such an indiscreet zeal.

A schoolmaster at Auteuil, near this capital, of the name of Gouron, had a private seminary, organized upon the footing of our former colleges.  In some few months he was offered more pupils than he could well attend to, and his house shortly became very fashionable, even for our upstarts, who sent their children there in preference.  He was ordered before Fouche last Christmas, and commanded to change the hours hitherto employed in teaching religion and morals, to a military exercise and instruction, as both more necessary and more salubrious for French youth.  Having replied that such an alteration was contrary to his plan and agreement with the parents of his scholars, the Minister stopped him short by telling him that he must obey what had been prescribed by Government, or stand the consequences of his refractory spirit.  Having consulted with his friends and patrons, he divided the hours, and gave half of the time usually allotted to religion or morality to the study of military exercise.  His pupils, however,