his own little home, his little place for standing,
sitting, or lying down, exactly as he has
his post in the ranks), innumerable extras
have been superadded to requirements of
absolute necessity, and all by means of the
self-helping habits to which the French
soldier is constantly trained. After the
making of the first camp-kitchens (mere
holes in the ground, with chimneys of turf,
or no chimneys at all, and a few boards or
bits of canvas to screen and cover them,
but which, nevertheless, are well worth
studying, because they do their work
effectually) general attention was next bestowed
on the construction of open-air ball-rooms,
with verdant sofas and orchestras; for
amusement in camp is a matter of serious
importance. To let men grow weary, dull,
and home-sick, is not the way to make
good soldiers. Therefore, at Honvault and
Wimcreux, fiddlers and clarionet-players in
uniform soon emerged from the general mass.
Proficients in dancing instantly asserted their
ability to unite the graces of Terpsichore
with the valour of Mars. Such high pretensions
are commonly tested by what are called
"assauts de danse," or, dancing matches,
which excite as much interest in the saltatory
world as a steeplechase or a prize-fight would
amongst the fancy in England.

Regimental cooking is done in turns by the
privates. The supervision and criticism of
culinary processes falls to the lot of the
corporals in rotation. All other labour which
is not comprised in the calls of military
service is paid for. The French soldier is not
made to work hard without the encouragement
of pecuniary reward. There are soldiers
in the camp of Honvault who earn, besides
their pay, as much as forty francs a month. The
soldier-bakers who make the camp-bread
excellent leavened bread it is receive eighteen
centimes per batch, besides their pay. If the
bread turn out good, and the red-legged
bakers conduct themselves properly, they
have a further gratification of six centimes,
making in all twenty-four centimes, or nearly
twopence-halfpenny per batch. The result is,
that at the end of the week the bakers have
a nice little purse of pocket-money, and
perhaps Maria-Jean's summer customers
were rolling in riches acquired by baking,
or tailoring, or cobbling, or other handicraft.
The French soldier is a perfect Jack-of-all-
trades. Only the day before yesterday, the
bit of road under my window was a strip
of loose sand; yesterday, artillery wagons
discharged their thunder by means of large
round pebbles, fetched from the beach.
A party of scarlet-pantalooned, red-capped,
blue-coated young fellows, smash the
aforesaid thunder to shivers. My landlord
seems to appreciate the exertions they are
making in the improvement of his ways; for
he gaily mixes with the gang, a litre bottle
of eau-de-vie in one hand, and a glass in the
other, and pours out a petit verre for
whomsoever will. The military macadamites are
not teetotalers; some take two, some even
swallow three, without coughing or making
wry faces. But only mark with what levity
they treat the task of breaking stones! One
has knocked off the head of his hammer, and
is fencing with the handle with his next-door
neighbour. Human versatility is tried to the
utmost; and those who are ignorant of
such accomplishments gradually learn road-
making, cookery, hut-building, paving, wood-
cutting, stick-fencing, dancing, and the grand
art of making shift.

Leading qualities which honourably mark
the administration of the French army
(and why can they not equally belong to our
own?), are simplicity, directness of action,
forethought, responsibility, fair and equal
treatment excluding favouritism, and
recompense bestowed in proportion to merit.
Whether for soldier, sailor, tinker, or tailor, to
labour for nought is melancholy work. In
money-payment, as well as in honorary
rewards, the industrious and well-behaved
French soldier is better treated than the idle
and disorderly one. Small services are
remunerated with small gratuities, while larger
ones are honoured with larger. What might
be called domestic services, necessary for the
common welfare, are all strictly performed in
rotation. No one can reasonably complain of
carrying, to-day, a heavy burden to spare his
comrades' shoulders, when those same
comrades will bear for him exactly the same
number of pounds to-morrow and next
day. The cooking, we have seen, is done in
turn. A man serves his mouth in the kitchen,
and while thus employed in making soup
from beef, vegetables, water, and bread,
remains exempt from other service. In a few
exceptional cases (only in the administrations),
the soldiers are permitted to raise
amongst themselves a stipend of ten sous a
day to give to their cook, as an inducement
for him to remain a permanent manufacturer
of broth, and to prevent its being spoiled by
too frequent a change of hands. The corporals
take their month's turn of officiating as
master cooks. Theirs is the office to taste
and pronounce judgment in contests about
pepper and salt, fat and lean, big bits or
little, thicker or thinner slicings of bread, and
coarser or finer shreddings of cabbages and
leeks.

Forethought is surely indispensable when
the welfare of thousands of men is at stake,
and when those men are the defenders of a
nation. Sad experience has taught us what a
perishable thing an army is. From the first
moment when the component parts of an army
begin to draw together towards their common
centre, even before they form one united
body, they have a daily tendency and liability
to suffer diminution of their aggregate
number. When the army is actually formed, and
begins to move either in one or in several
large masses, the tendency greatly increases.