Many of these reformes are men of delicate health, suffering from
heart or chest complaints, but in these barracks there is no comfort
for the invalid. I know one of them in which nearly seven hundred
men slept together in a great garret, with only one window and a
dozen narrow skylights, so that the atmosphere was suffocating
above their rows of straw trusses, rarely changed and of
indescribable filth. But what hurts the spirits of men who have
attained good positions in civil life, who have said to this man "Go!"
and he goeth, and to that man "Come!" and he cometh, is to find their
positions reversed and to be under the orders of a corporal or
sergeant with a touch of the bully about him, happy to dominate men
more educated and more intelligent than himself. I can quote an
example of an aristocrat who, in spite of his splendid chateau in the
country, was mobilized as a simple soldat.
At the barracks this gentleman found that his corporal was a labourer
in the village where the old chateau stands. In order to amuse himself
the corporal made M. le Chatelain do all the dirtiest jobs, such as
sweeping the rooms, cleaning the staircases and the lavatories. At
the same barracks were a number of priests, including an archipretre,
who was about to become a bishop.
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