A lingering, deep-seated revolution has destroyed the close hierarchical union of recognized supremacies and of voluntary deference.

It is like an army in which the attitudes of chiefs and subordinates have disappeared; grades are indicated by uniforms only, but they have no hold on consciences.

All that constitutes a well-founded army, the legitimate ascendancy of officers, the justified trust of soldiers, the daily interchange of mutual obligations, the conviction of each being useful to all, and that the chiefs are the most useful all, is missing.

How could it be otherwise in an army whose staff-officers have no other occupation but to dine out, to display their epaulettes and to receive double pay?
Long before the final crash France is in a state of dissolution, and she is in a state of dissolution because the privileged classes had forgotten their characters as public men.
***** NOTES: [Footnote 1401: "Rapport de l'agence du clerge," from 1775 to 1780, pp.
31-34 .-- Ibid.

from 1780 to 1785, p.