They are
schooled in fraternity, in discipline, in frugality, in good habits,
in love of country and in detestation of kings." three or four
thousand young people are lodged at the Sablons, "in a palisaded
enclosure, the intervals of which are guarded by chevaux de frises and
sentinels."[110] We puts them into tents; we feed them with bran
bread, rancid pork, water and vinegar; we drill them in the use of
arms; we march them out on national holidays and stimulate them with
patriotic harangues. - Suppose all Frenchmen educated in such a
school; the habits they acquire in youth will persist in the adult,
and, in each adult we shall find the sobriety, energy and patriotism
of a Spartan or Roman.
Already, under the pressure of our decrees, civism affects customs,
and there are manifest signs, on all sides, of public regeneration.
"The French people," says Robespierre, "seems to have outstripped the
rest of humanity, by two thousand years; one might be tempted to
regard them, living amongst them, as a different species. In the rest
of Europe, a ploughman, an artisan, is an animal formed for the
pleasures of a noble; in France, the nobles are trying to transform
themselves into ploughmen and artisans, but do not succeed in
obtaining that honor.
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