and the dragoons of the
Garde-Republicaine, the municipal force, on duty before the Opera-house
on nights of performance, add greatly to the animated and picturesque
aspect of the capital. To those who were in the city in the early fall
of this year, the efficacy of a standing army to maintain public order
was abundantly demonstrated. There can be no doubt that the threatened
general strike of workmen and laborers, affecting all private and
municipal works, and even the success of the coming Exposition of 1900,
was prevented, almost in its inception, by the abundant protection
afforded those workmen who continued to labor. If it were necessary, a
single _ouvrier_, or _terrassier_, could have half a dozen soldiers or
police to protect him against the violence of those of his fellows _en
greve_, and the city was dotted with pickets of infantry and cavalry,
sergents de ville, sentinels before all unfinished buildings, railway
stations, etc. The arts of the demagogue are by no means unknown in this
land of universal suffrage, and frantic appeals were made to them on
this occasion, but the government remained entirely unimpressed, to its
praise be it said.

The drawing of the conscripts for the army by lot, and the revision of
those thus selected, were formerly conducted in the Hotel de Ville, but
of late years have been apportioned among the _Mairies_ of the various
arrondissements. For those which offer no suitable locality for these
operations, the Palais de l'Industrie was used until its recent
demolishment. The _conseil de revision_ held its sittings in the great
Salle Saint-Jean at the back of the Hotel de Ville, on the
rez-de-chaussee, or ground-floor. These sittings began at eight o'clock
in the morning, the members of the council took their places, according
to their rank, at a large table in the shape of a horseshoe, the general
or the colonel present at this function at the right of the president,
then the oldest conseiller general, the intendant, the mayor of the
arrondissement whose citizens were to come up for inspection, and who
was present in an advisory capacity; at the left, the conseiller of the
prefecture, the second conseiller general, the captain having charge of
the recruiting. Before the table the examining doctor took his stand,
and the patients presented themselves before him, after having been
measured, all of them as naked as they were born, and yet in a correct
military attitude, heels together,