every expense of table provided, the only extra
being a subscription, which was perfectly voluntary,
of two francs each per month, which formed
a small fund by which a few bottles of champagne
were provided on extra occasions, such
as a stranger like myself joining their pension
for the first time. After dinner we generally
resorted to a cafe, where officers of different
ranks met together every evening to read
the papers, smoke cigars, play dominoes or
chess, or sip their coffee or "grogs." In this
establishment there was a room set apart for
such officers of the regiment as liked to
subscribe to what they called their "cloob."

It was in this "cloob" that I used to see
the officers of all ranks belonging to the
regiment. One night, when sitting with my
friend apart from the rest of the company, our
conversation turned upon military education
and military promotion. Until then I was—and
I imagine most Englishmen are—under the
impression that, though promotion from the ranks
is frequent in the French army, the great
majority of those who hold commissions have all
passed through the military college. My friend,
however, undeceived me. At the time we
commenced our conversation there were present in
the room not fewer than thirty-five or forty
officers, including the colonel and lieutenant-
colonel of his own regiment, and some half-dozen
cavalry and artillery officers who had looked in
to join in a glass of "ponch," and take a hand
at " veest." My friend looked carefully round
the room, noting to himself the names of all
those present, and then told me that, with the
exception of about ten officers (there were two
or three of the artillery and cavalry that he was
not certain about), every one present had risen
from the ranks.

I could not help expressing surprise; for,
not only were the officers present quite as
gentlemanly in their habits and manners as
the average officers met with in any English
regiment, but most of those below the rank
of field-officers were—or appeared to be—too
young to have had time to pass through the
ordeal of the barrack-room, and to have graduated
successively as corporal, sergeant, and sergeant-
major, up to the rank of commissioned officer.

There was another subject connected with the
French army, in which I found out my error.
In England we are under the impression that
the ranks of our neighbour's land forces are
almost entirely recruited from the conscription.
In former days it was so, but ever since
Napoleon has been emperor he has been doing his
utmost to increase the number of what the
French call volunteers. So successfully has this
scheme been carried out, that, whereas before
1848 not one soldier in fifty was a volunteer,
there are now in all the crack corps—the
Zouaves, Chasseurs d'Afrique, Hussars, and
suchlike—quite as many volunteers as conscripts;
and in regiments of the line these bear the
proportion of full twenty per cent, or one-fifth of
the whole. So fast are the proportions of
volunteer enlistments to conscriptions increasing
every year, that it is believed conscription in
France will soon become almost a dead letter,
except in time of war.

"How is it," I asked my friend, " that the
emperor has managed to increase, or rather to
create—for until he came to power, voluntary
enlistment in your army was a thing almost
unknown—the number of volunteers from about
two to twenty, and, in many cases, to fifty per
cent in the whole army?"

"Simply by raising," was the reply, " the
prospects of all who enter the ranks of their
own free will, and by giving them a fair share of
promotion, even up to the highest grades. In
former days, though the theory of promotion
from the ranks existed, it was not, except under
the first empire, put in full practice. It is true
that sergeants and sergeant-majors received their
due share of promotion to the rank of commissioned
officer, but under the restoration, as
during the reign of Louis Philippe, they seldom
rose higher than lieutenants, or at the most
captains. But under Napoleon there is a
marked preference given to young men who
have begun their career by shouldering a
musket, or cleaning a horse; so much so, that
many parents, whose sons wish to enter the army,
prefer keeping them at home, or at school, until
they are eighteen or nineteen, and then letting
them enlist, instead of sending them to the military
college."

As my informant finished speaking, there
entered the room a captain of Lancers, about
thirty years of age. He was introduced to
me, paid me a very well-turned compliment
about the English cavalry regiment which he
learnt from my friend I belonged to—a corps
he said he had seen in the Crimea—and, after
talking with us ten minutes or so, passed on
to another part of the room. As he left us, I
remarked to my friend that he did, at any rate,
not look like an officer who had risen from the
ranks.

"You are mistaken," was the reply. " Seven
years ago that gentleman was a private soldier.
His history is word for word what would describe
the career of a dozen officers in every
regiment in the French army. He wanted,
when sixteen years of age, to enter the military
college, but his father would not let him, wishing
him to follow his own profession, that of a
notaire, or lawyer. The young man remained
in his father's office until he was twenty-one
years of age, and being then free from control,
enlisted as a dragoon. In the school of his
corps he qualified himself to become a corporal,
and passed an excellent examination. In our
army this is the first and sure step towards
further promotion. In four years he attained
to the rank of sub-lieutenant, and was
transferred in that rank to the Chasseurs d'Afrique
in Algiers. He saw some service there, but
more in the Crimea, and still more in Italy; on
returning from which country, he received his
captaincy. He may expect, in a couple or
three years more, to be a major (chef
d'escadrons); in five years more, to be colonel of a