Wolfe wished to travel about freely, to see the French
armies at work, and then to go on to Prussia to see how
Frederick the Great managed his perfectly disciplined
army. This would have been an excellent thing to do. But
it was then a very new thing for an officer to ask leave
to study foreign armies. Moreover, the chief men in the
British Army did not like the idea of letting such a good
colonel go away from his regiment for a year, even though
he was going with the object of making himself a still
better officer. Perhaps, too, his friends were just a
little afraid that he might join the Prussians or the
Austrians; for it was not, in those days, a very strange
thing to join the army of a friendly foreign country.
Whatever the reason, the long leave was refused and he
went no farther than Paris.

Louis XV was then at the height of his apparent greatness;
and France was a great country, as it is still. But king
and government were both corrupt. Wolfe saw this well
enough and remembered it when the next war broke out.
There was a brilliant society in 'the capital of
civilization,' as the people of Paris proudly called
their city; and there was a great deal to see. Nor was
all of it bad. He wrote home two days after his arrival.

The packet [ferry] did not sail that night, but we
embarked at half-an-hour after six in the morning and
got into Calais at ten. I never suffered so much in
so short a time at sea. The people [in Paris] seem to