364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



IMPRESSIONS OF MILITARY LIFE IN FRANCE^ 



By Peofessob ALBERT LEON GU^RABD 



STANFOBD DNITEBSITZ 



[SERVED 309 days — we counted them from the very first, and 

 shouted every morning " Encore tant et la fuite !" — as second- 

 class private in the 129th regiment of the line, stationed at Le Havre. 

 I was paid one cent a day, and in addition was entitled, every ten days, 

 to a packet of tobacco at half its market value. That was in 1903-04, 

 under the old (1889) law. University students, teachers, artists, arti- 

 sans and craftsmen (ouvriers d'art), ministers and men having a family 

 to support (soutiens de famille) had to serve, nominally one year, prac- 

 tically ten months. The rest — two thirds of the contingent — served 

 three years. Any one mentally or bodily deficient was totally ex- 

 empted. At present, the universal term of service is two years, without 

 exception. Many of the halt and maimed, formerly totally excused, 

 are employed in office work or in the repair shops, which offer a sorry 

 sight. Candidates for the priesthood were for a while placed in the 

 regular troops. Now they serve in the ambulance corps, as do a few 

 determined Tolstoians who stubbornly refused to touch a weapon. 



My impressions of the army were unfavorably colored, for several 

 reasons, and my testimony is open to discount. First of all, I was a 

 widow^s only son, and was brought up very strictly by my mother. 

 Then, the Dreyfus case was hardly over at that time (it was before the 

 second "revision," and the final triumph of justice), and for the last 

 four or five years I had been an enthusiastic Dreyfusist and attended 

 numberless antimilitarist meetings. I found myself among workmen 

 from the mills of Elbeuf and Rouen. Normandy is a fine country, and 

 the race that lives there still offers splendid specimens. But it is 

 rapidly being ruined by an evil greater than militarism — alcoholism; 

 alcoholism to a degree which I as a Parisian did not dream of. Chil- 

 dren seemed to be brought up on "Calvados" (cider brandy). The 

 result can be imagined. 



Finally I was stationed at Le Havre, the second seaport in France. 

 The barracks rose right on the quays, and I could see in all its hideous- 

 ness the gross immorality which prevails in all shipping centers. On 

 the very first day, our sergeant carefully explained to us when to go to 



* This article is an extract from a private letter in answer to a query con- 

 cerning the military system of France. It is published by permission of Pro- 

 fessor Gufirard. — David Starr Jordan. 



