y, and frequently in the regimental lists, represented as noble; but
after the peace, however great their capacity, they were almost always
kept out of the privileged battalions. This did not improve under the
later Kings. Only in the Artillery, in 1806, were the greater number of
officers commoners, but on that account they were not considered as
equals. It was a bitter irony that a French artillery officer should be
the person, as Emperor of the French, to think of shattering the
Prussian army and its State into pieces, at the same time in which they
were contending in Prussia as to whether an officer of artillery
should be received upon the general staff, and that the citizen
Lieutenant-Colonel Schamhorst should be envied this privilege.[39] It
was natural that all the failings of a privileged order should appear
in full measure in the Prussian corps of officers. Pride towards the
citizens, roughness to those under them, a deficiency in cultivation
and good morals, and in the privileged regiments an unbridled
insolence. It is a common complaint of contemporaries, that in the
streets and societies of Berlin people were not secure from the
insults of the _gens d'armes_, who were the _elite_ of the young
nobility. Already did these arrogant men, at the beginning of the
reign of Frederic William III., begin to be ashamed of wearing their
old-fashioned uniform in society, and where they dared, lounged in with
protruding white neck-ties, top-boots, and sword-sick.

In spite of these deficiencies, there was still in the Prussian army
much of the capacity and strength of the olden time. The stout race of
old subaltern officers had not died out, men who had shed bitter tears
over the death of their great General in 1786; and still did the common
soldiers, in spite of the diminished confidence in their leaders, feel
pride in their well-tried war-like capacity. Many characteristic traits
have been preserved to us, which give us a pleasing picture of the
disposition of the army. When, in the campaign of 1792, a Prussian and
Austrian, as good comrades and malcontents, were complaining to one
another, and the Prussian did not speak in praise of his King, he yet
stopped the other, who was repeating his words, with a box on the ear,
saying: "You shall not speak so of my King;" and on the angry Austrian
reproaching him with having said the same, the aggressor replied: "I
may say that, but not you, for I am a Prussian." Such was the fe