Barbey d'Aurevilly rebels against tedious technicalities. Carried away by the author's historical and philosophical faculties, he soars without difficulty to the plane of Ardant du Picq. In like manner, du Picq ranges easily from the most mediocre military operations to the analysis of the great functions of policy of government and the evolution of nations.
Who could have unraveled with greater finesse the causes of the insatiable desires of conquest by the new power which was so desirous of occupying the leading rôle on the world's stage? If our diplomats, our ministers and our generals had seized the warning of 1866, the date of the defeat of Austria, it is possible that we might have been spared our own defeats.
"Has an aristocracy any excuse for existing if it is not military? No. The Prussian aristocracy is essentially military. In its ranks it does accept officers of plebeian extraction, but only under condition that they permit themselves to be absorbed therein.
"Is not an aristocracy essentially proud? If it were not proud it would lack confidence. The Prussian aristocracy is, therefore, haughty; it desires domination by force and its desire to rule, to dominate more and more, is the essence of its existence. It rules by war; it wishes war; it must have war at the proper time. Its leaders have the good judgment to choose the right moment. This love of war is in the very fiber, the very makeup of its life as an aristocracy.
"Every nation that has an aristocracy, a military nobility, is organized in a military way. The Prussian officer is an accomplished gentleman and nobleman; by instruction or examination he is most capable; by education, most worthy. He is an officer and commands from two motives, the French officer from one alone.
"Prussia, in spite of all the veils concealing reality, is a military organization conducted by a military corporation. A nation, democratically constituted, is not organized from a military point of view. It is, therefore, as against the other, in a state of unpreparedness for war.
"A military nation and a warlike nation are not necessarily the same. The French are warlike from organization and instinct. They are every day becoming less and less military.