We all of us see first of all youth glorified by the uniform, full of adventures (for you know all the women fight for us), by the joy of life, loved and respected everywhere, head and shoulders above our countrymen; and when old age approaches, and we begin to get fat and bald, the gold braid of a general, politics, and, who knows, possibly the portfolio of war! This is in everyone's thoughts.

No one believes but that the future holds a baton for him, and that he has only to unhook it and fasten it to his belt.

I know for certain what is awaiting me, the rest dream and hope for it, and so we go on living." Gabriel smiled as he listened to the cadet.
"You are all deceiving yourselves, like those poor youths who enter the seminaries, believing that a mitre awaits them or a fat benefice on the other side of the door.

It is the influence and attraction still exercised by the great things that have been.

Let us see--apart from the material result of the profession--why do you become soldiers ?" "For the sake of glory!" said the cadet pompously, remembering the harangues of the colonel director of the academy.