Amongst nine or ten thousand officers, the great
majority coming from the lower and poorer class of provincial
nobles, body-guards, lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant-
colonels, and even colonels, have no other pretension. Satisfied
with favors[32] restricted to their subordinate rank, they leave the
highest grades of the service to the heirs of the great families, to
the courtiers or to the parvenus at Versailles, and content
themselves with remaining the guardians of public order, and the
brave defenders of the State. Under this system, when the heart is
not depraved it becomes exalted; it is made a point of honor to
serve without compensation; there is nothing but the public welfare
in view, and all the more because, at this moment, it is the
absorbing topic of all minds and of all literature. Nowhere has
practical philosophy, that which consists in a spirit of abnegation,
more deeply penetrated than among this unrecognized nobility. Under
a polished, brilliant, and sometimes frivolous exterior, they have a
serious soul ; the old sentiment of honor is converted into one of
patriotism.
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