By restricting the French officer corps to members of the nobility, there were not enough "Gardes" to man all of the ships during wartime. To fill the gaps, volunteers were temporarily recruited from the merchant service; they were allowed to hold permanent rank in the navy starting in 1763. These professional officers wore blue uniforms to distinguish them from the "Gardes de la Marine" who wore red uniforms. After the revolution, the royal connotations of the term "garde marine" led to its replacement with "aspirant" (officer cadet), and later "élèves de la Marine" (naval officer candidate). Contemporary French naval officer training still reflects this structure: students at the École navale begin their first year as "élève-officier", are promoted in their second year to "aspirant", and in their third year are commissioned as an acting sub-lieutenant (). In a modern French-English dictionary, "élève officier" translates to midshipman, but both the historical term "garde-marine" and the modern term for an officer candidate, "aspirant", are also equivalent to midshipman.