of two hundred livres on the funds of the school.

In the month of August, 1760, the king issued a long statement setting
forth the motives which had actuated him in drawing up the code of
regulations; in the following February, the Archbishop of Paris
published an equally long manifesto defining the functions and exercises
spiritual which the pupils were to practise. All this did not prevent
the king from modifying the organization of the school, in 1764;
recognizing the truth that a strictly military education was not the
best adapted to the wants of youth, and establishing the College de la
Fleche for a preparatory educational institution; in 1776, Louis XVI
suppressed the Ecole, and distributed the pupils among various colleges
whose graduates were gentlemen cadets for the various royal
regiments. In 1778, the school was re-established, and the king granted
it an endowment of fifteen millions; a decree of March 26, 1790,
abolished the restriction of titles of nobility for all applicants, and
threw the entrance open to all sons of officers of the land and sea
forces. The Convention, by a decree of 13th of June, 1793, ordered the
sale of all the property from which the revenues of the school were
drawn, and converted the buildings into cavalry barracks and a depot for
flour. Under the Empire, Napoleon installed his Guard in the Ecole
Militaire; in 1815, under the Restoration, the Garde Royale was lodged
there; under Louis Napoleon, the Imperial Guard again,--very important
demolitions and reconstructions having been found necessary between 1856
and 1865.

[Illustration: LA VIE A LA CASERNE: NIGHT IN THE "CHAMBREE." After a
drawing by Georges Scott.]

The aim of the school, as at present conducted, is to develop the
highest military studies, and to form officers for the service of the
general staff. Captains and lieutenants of all arms of the two branches
of the service, having served a certain number of years, and being
acceptable to their superiors, are admitted to compete. Three failures
to pass the examination disqualify the aspirant.

The terrible Convention wished to have a military school of its own, and
by a decree of the 1st of June, 1793, it founded the Ecole de Mars, in
the plain of Sablons. The idea had originated with Carnot; the
institution was intended to educate soldiers for the corps of artillery,
the cavalry, and the infantry. The pupils, from sixteen to seventeen
years of age, were there to rece