"Meaning no offense, General, the bourgeois have hands too soft to handle
a plow. There is need of a hard fist to handle these tools."

"That is so," replied the First Consul, smiling. "But big and strong as
you are, you should handle something else than a plow. A good musket,
for instance, or the handle of a good saber."

The laborer drew himself up with an air of pride. "General, in my time I
have done as others. I had been married six or seven years when these
d---d Prussians (pardon me, General) entered Landrecies. The requisition
came. They gave me a gun and a cartridge-box at the Commune
headquarters, and march! My soul, we were not equipped like those big
gallants that I saw just now on entering the courtyard." He referred to
the grenadiers of the Consular Guard.

"Why did you quit the service?" resumed the First Consul, who appeared
to take great interest in the conversation.

"My faith, General, each one in his turn, and there are saber strokes
enough for every one. One fell on me there" (the worthy laborer bent
his head and divided the locks of his hair); "and after some weeks in the
field hospital, they gave me a discharge to return to my wife and my
plow."

"Have you any children?"

"I have three, General, two boys and a girl."

"You must make a soldier of the oldest. If he will conduct himself well,