by the accountable officers; it points out and
rectifies errors, if any such exist; allows the
expenses which it recognises as regular, and
puts a veto on such as do not appear to its
judgment to be sufficiently justifiable. The
vetos which it exercises the power of
pronouncing are not definitive; for the parties
can appeal to the council of state, which
gives a final decision.

The administrative personnel is composed
of intendants, sub-intendants, and officers of
administration. Besides these, there are
troops of administration, composed of
infirmiers, bakers, butchers, masons, and so on, in
short, of all the artificers and workmen who
ave required to execute different services'
The intendants are placed, one in each chef-
lieu de division, or military divisional central
town, one for each corps d'armée. The sub-
intendants under their orders are distributed
amongst the different garrison towns, and
have to act as overseers of the administrative
services. One or more officers of administration,
according as there is a "hopital majeur,"
a provision magazine or an encampment, are
placed in each of these garrisons to perform
the administrative services. The intendants-
major receive the orders of the minister;
they transmit them to the sub-intendants
placed under their orders, who transmit them
to be executed by the accountable officers
whose duty it is to execute those services.

The services are organised in such a way
that when a corps-d'armée departs from one
point to march to another, the soldier has to
carry with him nothing but his arms and
his knapsack. Before its departure, notice is
given to all the places which the troops have
to traverse, to hold in readiness everything
required for their subsistence, so that a
distribution is made immediately it arrives by
means of the officers of administration. On
the other hand, the intendant-major of the
military division towards which the corps-
d'armée is travelling, assembles at that point
the necessary provisions, which are placed at
the disposal of an accountable officer, who
causes them to be manutentioned and
distributed.

But even French army management is not
quite perfect. The same complaint is made,
though to a less extent, as is charged against
our lords of the admiralty in Sir G. Cockburn's
remarkable posthumous manifesto;
namely, that those who have the direction of
the whole vast machine, are wanting in the
knowledge of practical details. French officers
of experience state that though the military
administration of France is superior to that of
many other countries, it is still deficient in
the important respect that it does not possess
a single practical man in its highest region.
Thus, the artillery, the engineering, the
infantry, and the cavalry, has each its
committee at the War Office, composed of
officers belonging to each service; but the
general direction does not comprise in its
body one single officer of administration who
has actually managed either hospital
establishments, or a manutentional service, or,
lastly, magazines of encampment—duties
most favourable for the acquirement of the
knowledge and experience that are requisite
to judge whether certain innovations can be
introduced without inconvenience, whether
the services of the interior or of the
armies are properly executed, and what
ameliorations are most expedient in case of need.
The absence of such men compels the general
direction to derive its theoretical knowledge
from the mere reading of the regulations.
Consequently, when it desires to introduce
improvements, it issues orders impossible to
execute in all their details; it saps, without
intending it, the admirable edifice of the
"service des subsistences," as given in the
Reglement of September, 'twenty-seven; and
it renders intricate, instead of simplifying, a
system of accounts which can never be otherwise
than complicated.

    SPECIMENS OF THE ALCHEMISTS.

      IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER II.

NICHOLAS FLAMEL was born at Pontoise,
near Paris, in thirteen hundred and twenty-
eight. His father had left him nothing but
the house in which he lived, and where he
carried on the business of a scrivener, which,
in those days, consisted in copying deeds and
writings in Latin and French. Printing not
being then invented, to be a scribe or
scrivener was a regular profession.

Flamel was a man of genius—he had some
skill in painting, and wrote poetry—but
chemistry was the art which most attracted
him. In those days chemistry was a mysterious
semi-supernatural study, which promised
to its followers an entrance into all the hidden
secrets that cause the appearances of things;
it would lead them into the very presence of
the invisible powers of nature, and give
knowledge to controul them.

Nicholas Flamel became an hermetic student
towards the year thirteen hundred and fifty-
seven. All the seekers after the hermetic
mystery cultivated great piety and humility
of heart. After a prayer and thanksgiving,
very good but too long to quote, Nicholas
proceeds to give some account of his progress
to the great secret, as follows:—I, Nicholas
Flamel, scrivener, living in Paris, aim.
thirteen hundred and ninety-nine, in the
Notary Street, near St. Jacques de la
Boucherie, though I learned not much Latin
because of the poorness and meanness of my
parents, who, notwithstanding, were (even by
those who envy me most), accounted good,
honest, people; yet, by the blessing of God, I
have not wanted an understanding of the
philosophers, but learned them and even
attained to a certain kind of knowledge even
of their hidden secrets. For which cause
sake there shall not any moment of my life