Under the Consulate in 1800, the Prytanée Français was founded, consisting of four separate Colleges. The name was not long after changed to the Prytanée Militaire; and after some time the number was diminished, and La Flèche, which had in 1764 received the youngest pupils of the old Royal Military School, became the seat of the sole remaining establishment; which subsequently sunk to the proportions of a mere junior preparatory school, and became, in fine, the present establishment for military orphans, which still retains the title, and is called the Prytanée Militaire de la Flèche.
A special Military School, in the meantime, had been set up at Fontainebleau in 1803, transferred in 1808 to St. Cyr, and thus taking the place of the Prytanée Militaire and of its predecessor, the original Ecole Royale Militaire, gradually assumed its present form.[15]
The course of study lasts two years; the usual number of cadets in time of peace is five, or at the utmost six hundred; the admission is by competitive examination, open to all youths, French by birth or by naturalization, who on the first of January preceding their candidature were not less than sixteen and not more than twenty years old. To this examination are also admitted soldiers in the ranks between twenty and twenty-five years of age, who, at the date of its commencement, have been actually in service in their regiments for two years.
The general conditions and formalities are the same as those already stated for the Polytechnic. It may be repeated that all the candidates, in accordance with a recent enactment, must have taken the usual degree which terminates the task at the lycées—the baccalaureate in sciences.
Those who succeed in the examination and are admitted, take an engagement to serve seven years either in the cavalry or infantry, and are thus under the obligation, if they are judged incompetent at the close of their two years’ stay at the school to receive a commission, to enter and serve as common soldiers. The two years of their stay at the school counts as a part of their service. It is only in the special case of loss of time caused by illness, that permission is given to remain a third year.
The ordinary payment is 60l. (1,500 francs) per annum. All whose inability to pay this amount is satisfactorily established, may claim, as at the Polytechnic, an allowance of the whole or of half of the expenses from the State, to which may be added an allowance for the whole or for a portion of the outfit (from 24l. to 28l.) These bourses or demi-bourses, with the trousseau, or demi-trousseau, have during the last few years been granted unsparingly. One-third of the 800 young men at the school in February 1856 were boursiers or demi-boursiers. Candidates admitted from the Orphan School of La Flèche, where the sons of officers wounded or killed in service receive a gratuitous education, are maintained in the same manner here.[16]
It was the rule till lately that cadets appointed, on leaving St. Cyr, to the cavalry should be placed for two years at the Cavalry School at Saumur. This, however, has recently been changed; on entering St. Cyr those who desire appointments in the cavalry declare their wishes, and are put at once through a course of training in horsemanship. Those who are found unfit are quickly withdrawn; the remainder, if their place on the final examination allows of their appointment to the cavalry, are by that time sufficiently well practiced to be able to join their regiments at once.
Twenty-seven, or sometimes a greater number, are annually at the close of their second year of study placed in competition with twenty-five candidates from the second lieutenants belonging to the army,[17] if so many are forthcoming, for admission to the Staff School at Paris. This advantage is one object which serves as a stimulus to exertion, the permission being given according to rank in the classification by order of merit.
The school consists of two divisions, the upper and the lower, corresponding to the two years of the course. Each division is divided again into four companies. In each of these eight companies there are sub-officers chosen from the élèves themselves, with the titles of Sergent, Sergent Fourrier, and Caporal; those appointed to the companies of the junior division are selected from the second year cadets, and their superiority in standing appears to give these latter some considerable authority, exercised occasionally well, occasionally ill. The whole school, thus divided into eight companies, constitutes one battalion.
The establishment for conducting the school consists of—