this, they carry about with them a great number of idle fellows, who
never learned any art by which they may gain their living; and these, as
soon as either their lord dies, or they themselves fall sick, are turned
out of doors; for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to take
care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so
great a family as his predecessor did. Now, when the stomachs of those
that are thus turned out of doors grow keen, they rob no less keenly; and
what else can they do? For when, by wandering about, they have worn out
both their health and their clothes, and are tattered, and look ghastly,
men of quality will not entertain them, and poor men dare not do it,
knowing that one who has been bred up in idleness and pleasure, and who
was used to walk about with his sword and buckler, despising all the
neighbourhood with an insolent scorn as far below him, is not fit for the
spade and mattock; nor will he serve a poor man for so small a hire and
in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.' To this he answered,
'This sort of men ought to be particularly cherished, for in them
consists the force of the armies for which we have occasion; since their
birth inspires them with a nobler sense of honour than is to be found
among tradesmen or ploughmen.' 'You may as well say,' replied I, 'that
you must cherish thieves on the account of wars, for you will never want
the one as long as you have the other; and as robbers prove sometimes
gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers, so near an
alliance there is between those two sorts of life. But this bad custom,
so common among you, of keeping many servants, is not peculiar to this
nation. In France there is yet a more pestiferous sort of people, for
the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace (if
such a state of a nation can be called a peace); and these are kept in
pay upon the same account that you plead for those idle retainers about
noblemen: this being a maxim of those pretended statesmen, that it is
necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers