But I should question
whether all this civic swearing, clubbing, and feasting would dispose
them, more than at present they are disposed, to an obedience to their
officers, or teach them better to submit to the austere rules of
military discipline. It will make them admirable citizens after the
French mode, but not quite so good soldiers after any mode. A doubt
might well arise, whether the conversations at these good tables would
fit them a great deal the better for the character of _mere
instruments_, which this veteran officer and statesman justly observes
the nature of things always requires an army to be.
Concerning the likelihood of this improvement in discipline by the free
conversation of the soldiers with the municipal festive societies, which
is thus officially encouraged by royal authority and sanction, we may
judge by the state of the municipalities themselves, furnished to us by
the war minister in this very speech. He conceives good hopes of the
success of his endeavors towards restoring order _for the present_ from
the good disposition of certain regiments; but he finds something cloudy
with regard to the future. As to preventing the return of confusion,
"for this the administration" (says he) "cannot be answerable to you, as
long as they see the municipalities arrogate to themselves an authority
over the troops which your institutions have reserved wholly to the
monarch.
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