1. The empire was looked upon as “expended.”
2. The manhood of Paris and of France had become degenerated in physique; the sick and the relatively weak having been alone left after the wars of the 1st Napoleon to propagate their kind.
3. The study of the military sciences had been neglected; officers underwent examination rather for the purpose of obtaining appointments than to attain proficiency in knowledge of their profession.
4. Defects in administration by the Intendance, and general obstructiveness in that branch of the service.
5. Over-centralization, so that when emergency of war occurred, no corps was complete in itself; materiel had to be obtained from Paris, means of transport and roads being at once blocked in consequence.
6. The soldiers being allowed to give their votes at elections, their sympathies were diverted to their political parties rather than with their military commanders.
7. Want of mutual confidence between officers from the highest to the lowest rank; between officers and their men, and between the men themselves.[314] In fact, general mistrust prevails where confidence should exist.
8. The officers to a great extent being members of the same class of society to which the rank and file belong, there is an absence of that deference towards them by the latter, such as is considered essential to the maintenance of the highest order of discipline. From this and other circumstances there was said to exist a deplorable state of indiscipline, of which indeed some striking illustrations occurred during the siege.
9. Laxity of discipline among the higher officers, due to the (assigned) circumstance that the deposed Emperor manifested hesitancy and uncertainty with regard to punishments for shortcomings and offences on their part.
10. A spirit of impatience of control and of opposition against authority, fostered by the conditions of social life in France, including the absence of domesticity, and, as a consequence, of lively affection between parents and children, and among children themselves, many of whom spend their early years among strangers.