d upon
private citizens, and they received an annual allowance of twelve
hundred francs; at the present day, this allowance is reduced to a
thousand francs, plus seven hundred for wardrobe and a hundred for
outfit. To those pupils who are unable to meet the necessary expenses,
an allowance, or _Bourse_, is accorded, provided the parents engage
themselves to repay the cost of his education in case the ex-Boursier
does not remain ten years in the service of the State. The duration of
studies is two years.

At their close, the choice of the graduate's profession is determined by
his standing in his class. Rather curiously, the civil professions are
generally preferred,--mines, bridges, and highways, telegraphs, and
manufacture of tobacco. The pupils admitted into the civil professions
enter special schools, Ecole des Mines, des Ponts et Chaussees, etc.,
with the title of Eleve Ingenieur, and a brevet of sous-lieutenant de
Reserve in the artillery or the Genie [Engineers]. The pupils who select
the military career are appointed sous-lieutenants, and pass two years
at the Ecole d'Application of Fontainebleau.

A royal ordinance of May 6, 1818, created an Ecole d'Etat-Major [General
Staff], which was established in the old Hotel de Sens, near the Place
des Invalides. The school was destined to furnish officers to the
general staff of the army; its organization was modified in 1826, and
again in 1833. Under the Empire, it was designated as the Ecole
d'Application d'Etat-Major; it is to-day part of the Ecole Superieure de
Guerre.

In the little village of Saint-Cyr, about three miles from Versailles,
is the famous military school of the same name, which had existed at
Fontainebleau since 1803, and which, in 1808, was transferred by
Napoleon to the ancient buildings of the institution for the education
of the female nobility founded by Madame de Maintenon, and for which
Racine composed _Esther_ and _Athalie_. This institution was, naturally,
abolished during the Revolution, and the buildings appropriated to the
reception of wounded soldiers. Under the Restoration, the school was
suppressed, but later reorganized, and definitely reorganized by the
decree of January 18, 1882. Its object is to educate officers for the
infantry, the cavalry, and the marine infantry. The number of pupils is
generally from seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred, from seventeen
to twenty-one years of age. The number of pupils admitted each year is