un-frocked archdeacon who sold corn and
coals on commission.

They say that in the Prussian army
every commissioned officer below the rank
of major is bound to perform every day,
in addition to his military duties, and ere
ever he can think of recreation, a given
task of serious study; precisely as though
he were a schoolboy. He must draw some
map, plan, or elevation, solve some problem
in military mathematics, make an abridgment
or an analysis of a portion of some
technical work, or write some " theme" upon
a given subject; say the causes of the
Seven Years' War, the commissariat system
of the Tenth Legion, or the amount of
historical truth in the story of the battle of
the Lake Regillus. To the enforcement of
such an unbending course of mental as well
as physical discipline the Prussian army may
owe no inconsiderable portion of the
success which has lately attended its operations
in the field. Looking back upon the
Hotel Chaos, and the huge camp of which
it was the centre, I cannot help thinking
that a little daily schooling, after the Prussian
manner, would have done the paladins
of Gaul an immensity of good. An hour's
history, an hour's geography, an hour's
mathematics a day, would have been scarcely
felt by the multitude of officers who, their
slight regimental duties at an end, were
privileged, or rather condemned, for the
remainder of the twenty-four hours, to do
nothing but eat, drink, smoke, dawdle about
the court-yard and the streets, and babble.
Of female society, to refine or to amuse
them, there was none, for the burgesses of
Metz, a prudent race, so soon as ever the
vanguard of the Grand Army appeared in
sight, had locked up all their daughters,
and seemingly sent all their pretty servant-maids
home to their mothers. With a
bright exception or two, the womanhood of
Metz were about as engaging in aspect as
Sycorax, mother of Caliban. There was a
large and handsome theatre: but the company
had been dispersed, and old ladies and
little schoolgirls sat in the stalls and on the
stage, all day long, scraping lint. The two
billiard tables in the place had speedily
collapsed. Of one the Third Chasseurs cut the
cloth with their cues, and declining to pay
for the damage, the proprietor closed the
entire concern in a huff. I think some of
the tables must have been let out as beds;
at all events the sound of the clicking of
balls grew fainter every day, while that of
babbling grew louder. It was the babbling
that drove the Grand Army mad. It was
the infinite babble that brought about
Chaos. Of golden silence there was none;
of silvery speech little; it was the age of
bronze and brass swagger and braggadocio,
mouthed by copper captains and
smock-faced sous-lieutenants who, but a
fortnight before had been schoolboys at St.
Cyr. It would have been better for them
to be at school still. Poor lads, I see them
now, with their brand-new uniforms, which
they were never tired of admiring when
they could get near a mirror; the fresh
lace glittering on collar and cuffs; the
buttons scarce freed from the tissue paper
in which they had been wrapped; the first
sheen upon the sword scabbard; the varnish
hardly dry on the belts, and in their bright
boyish eyes the first exultation born of
independence, of the consciousness of being
men—of the rapture of the coming strife.
Poor lads! poor lads! I hear their loose
and idle talk, their vain boastings, their
complacent disparagement of the Prussians,
"mangeurs de choucroute," forsooth, whom
they were going to " eat," without pepper or
salt. One might have fancied Maffio Orsini
and the rest gaily defying Donna Lucrezia
at Venice. But what said that Borgia woman
in the end? " You gave me a ball at
Venice; I return it by a supper at Ferrara;"
and then the lugubrious chant arose, Nisi
Dominus ædificat Domum, and the seven
monks with the seven coffins appeared in
the doorway of the brilliant banqueting
chamber. The answer to the defiance at
Metz was at Wissembourg, at Woerth, and
in the bloody shambles below Sedan. When
I think upon these lads now, it is as though
I had been down to a charnel house, and
lived among corpses; and were I to meet
one of the babblers of the Hotel Chaos
in the street I should take him for a
ghost.

Babbling, continual babbling, made the
warriors dry, and it is not libellous, I trust,
to hint that the army at Metz, ere the first
tidings of discomfiture came, had grown to
be—for Frenchmen, who in old times had
a repute for temperance—a drunken army.
Absinthe, kirsch, and cognac tippling went
on all day and nearly all night at the
Chaos, and the dissipation engendered by
sheer idleness among the officers was not
slow to spread among the rank and file,
who, in their cups, not only babbled but
brawled. For the rest there was Chaos
outside as well as inside the hotels. The
tradespeople of the town were doing a
roaring business. Wholesale traders could
sell as much meat, flour, wine, and forage