were his friends informed him privately that the Calotte had ordered the
two colonels who had given offense on that occasion to be publicly
tossed in blankets and that the sentence was about to be carried out.
Segur, to gain time, ordered the drummers to beat an alarm. The game was
broken up, every officer ran to his colors, and the aide-de-camp
hastened to explain the matter to the astonished general. The proposed
punishment was deferred and finally prevented; but the escape from a
scandalous breach of discipline had been a narrow one.

As the Revolution drew nearer, its spirit became evident in the army.
The Count of Guibert, the most talented and influential member of the
Board of War in 1788, was the object of satire and epigram. The younger
officers conspired to spoil the success of his manoeuvres. The
experiments that had been tried, the frequent changes in the
regulations, had unsettled their ideas. In their reaction against the
disagreeable rigor of German discipline, they protested that English
officers alone, and not the machine-like soldiers of a despot, were the
models for freemen. The common soldiers caught the spirit of
insubordination from those who commanded them. Especially, the large
regiment of French Guards, a highly privileged body, permanently
quartered in Paris, was infected with the spirit of revolt. Its men were
conspicuous in the early troubles of the Revolution, acting on the side
of the mob.[Footnote: Cherest, i. 552. Miot de Melito, i. 3.]

The militia of old France does not call for a long notice. It consisted
of from sixty to eighty thousand men, whose chief duty was in garrison
in time of war, and who during peace were not kept constantly together,
but assembled from time to time for drill. As the term of service was
six years, the number of men drawn did not exceed fifteen thousand
annually. This was surely no great drain on a population of twenty-six