Fortunately, correspondence is not forbidden, and the arrival of the
mail from home is always a great event. It is Saturday evening in the
chambrée, and Pitou has arrived at the end of the week without a
reprimand. His heart feels the need of expansion, and he is laboriously
writing out a letter to his betrothed, down in the country. "The sweat
stands on his forehead.... It is, perhaps, his method of showing
tenderness, for he is greatly moved. I watch him out of the corner of my
eye, and can see that his heart has returned to the paternal dwelling in
the province, in the familiar chamber, where his _promise_, Françoise,
has come to spend the evening, and says to herself as she knits:
"'At this moment, what is he doing, my Pierre?'
"He is writing to thee, my poor Françoise; he has commenced a second
letter, on beautiful lace paper ornamented with an immense rose,
arranged like a transformation scene in a theatrical spectacle. When you
unfold the sheet, the flower blooms out. It is a small prodigy of
ingenuity, of open-work, and of coloration. This marvel resembles a
symbolic cabbage; you look to see issue from it an infant newly born.
"But Pitou ceases writing and looks toward me with anguish. What has
happened to him? Finally, confiding, he comes to a decision, and, in a
low voice:
"'I say, thou, _embaume_, how dost thou write that?'
"'_Embaume?_'
"'Yes, _embaume_.... "The rose, may it _embaume_ [perfume] this
letter...."' (With a sly smile): "'I am writing to my _payse_.... I am
not sure.... She was with the Sisters three years.'
"'Ah, well! embaume: E-m-b-a-u-m-e.'
"'B-a-u.'
"'M-e.'
"'M-e.... _Merci, pays_.'
"And he continues, without deigning to reply to the _loustic_ who has
remarked our colloquy, and who calls to him:
"'Hé! Pitou, say to thy people that thou hast lost the umbrella of the
squad, and that they send thee a hundred sous to buy a new one with.'"
At ten o'clock the bugle sounds: "Lights out!" and the dormitory sinks
into darkness and slumber. "In the silence of the night, when sleep has
already dulled all the caserne, a sound as gentle as a caress comes from
outside, mysterious and far-away. The _clairon_ has transformed itself
into something soft and cradling, and modulates tenderly an old, old
song:
"_Do, do do, petit soldat,
Pense à ta bel', la plus belle des belles,
Do, do do, petit soldat,
Sois-lui fidèle,
Si elle t'aime, aime-la._"
At two o'clock in the morning, a heavy step is heard on the stair, the
door of the room is pushed violently open, and a hoarse voice, without
any respect for the slumber of the others, calls out the name of the
unlucky "cook for the day." The latter gets out of bed, feels around for
his blouse and his sabots, and departs with an equal amount of
unnecessary noise. Outside, he finds the corporal commanding the
culinary department, with the keys of the store-house; between them,
they open the kitchen, light the fires, and prepare the morning meal,
first the soup and then the coffee,--five kilogrammes of the latter for
a battalion. When réveil sounds, the beverage is ready, the men of the
_corvée_ carry it up into the dormitory in great earthenware jugs, one
in each hand. If their iron-pegged shoes should happen to slip on the
ice or snow of the court-yard, not only would the unlucky bearer run a
strong chance of being frozen on one side as he fell, and scalded on the
other, but he would also have to face the wrath of some thirty hungry
warriors. This coffee is not _exquis_, but it is hot, and the men
receive a good allowance of it; if the corporal be good-natured, they
drink it sitting on their beds, and steeping their bread in it in the
inelegant fashion dear to all their compatriots.
Finally, when the conscript has become a soldier, mastered the
intricacies of the _Théorie_ and the details of the manual of arms,
learned the secret of keeping his accoutrements in parade order, taken
part in the interminable drills in the secrecy of the caserne that
prepare for the great ones in public, he departs for the grand
manoeuvres. When they are over, the _classe_ for that year is dismissed,
except those unfortunates who are detained as many days longer as they
have served days in prison. The cheerfulness with which the soldiers
undergo the fatigues and discomforts of these annual exercises is
rightfully considered as an excellent sign of the efficiency of the
service. In the present year of grace, these manoeuvres were rendered
unusually trying by the persistent abnormal midsummer heat, and by the
blinding dust that blotted out whole parades. And yet, says a
correspondent of the _Temps_, "if the _armoire à glace_ (the knapsack)
be heavy, the road dusty, and the march across cultivated fields
laborious, it is none the less true than in the ranks of each detachment
there are to be found certain _loustics_ whose inexhaustible repertory
is sufficient to unwrinkle the most morose brows.
"The ancient French gaiety is dead, you say; follow, then, for a couple
of hours a column of infantry on the march, and you will not be long in
being undeceived. You will recognize very quickly that, in the army,
this gaiety is still in very good condition, even though it be at times
a little too gross. And, if you know your authors a little, you will see
things that would astonish them.
"You will hear chanted the _Boîteuse_, which was hummed, some two
hundred and odd years ago, by the troops of Louis XIV, and the couplets
of which swarm with allusions to the infirmity of Mlle. de la Vallière;
_Auprès de ma blonde_ ... song addressed to Mme. de Montespan, and a
multitude of others bearing witness to the passage of noble sovereigns,
or of illustrious chiefs now long since disappeared."
You will also, if you are a foreigner, see many other interesting traits
of national character, and, not improbably, some such curiously
unmilitary proceeding as that represented on our page, engraved from the
record of an unsympathetic photograph. This particular incident took
place at the manoeuvres at Châteaudun in 1894; the President of the
Republic, M. Casimir-Perier, is distributing the cross of the Legion of
Honor to a number of specially deserving officers and sous-officiers.
That very modern instrument of warfare, the bicycle, appeared in the
manoeuvres of this present year of grace with more importance than ever.
One correspondent, writing from Dompierre-sur-Besbre, on the 11th of
September, says: "The _compagnie cycliste_, covering the advance of the
march of the thirteenth corps, threw itself into Thiel at the moment
when the advance guard of the division was attacked by superior forces.
Taking advantage of the shelter of the woods, of the hedges, of the
houses, it held the enemy at bay long enough to permit the division to
come up, and the company bivouacked with the division." Another writes:
"I rejoined the column by a cross-road at the end of which the dragoons
were defiling past at a hard trot, followed by the _compagnie cycliste_,
whose support at this moment was most valuable. It protected the retreat
by delivering at certain distances volleys which momentarily arrested
the pursuit. It was wonderful to see with what rapidity the men of
Captain Gérard's command threw themselves into their saddles, covered a
distance of five or six hundred mètres, faced about and opened fire. If
they had been more numerous, what service would they not have rendered!
The cavalry officers who see them every day at work are the first to
recognize their usefulness." The employment of these instruments has
even been extended to the _gendarmerie_ by an order of the Minister of
War, at the close of the manoeuvres,--two legions of this force having
been furnished with them. In 1897, some machines constructed by the
artillery were distributed to a legion near Paris, as an experiment,
with very satisfactory results,--the transmission of orders, maintenance
of communication, etc., being thus assured in a satisfactory manner.
There is, of course, some opposition manifested to this innovation, and
the employment of mounted gendarmes is not yet discontinued. As may be
seen from the illustrations on page 139, the French military bicycle,
the invention of Captain Gérard, is constructed in such a manner as to
fold up and be transported on the soldier's back.
[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT CASIMIR-PERIER, KISSING ON THE CHEEK A
RECIPIENT OF THE RIBBON OF THE ORDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR.]
As in all old armies, very many of the regiments have records which date
back to the last century, and of which they are very proud;--one of the
cavalry regiments, the Fourth Chasseurs, celebrated in 1890 the
anniversary of its creation in 1744 with an historical restoration and a
military carrousel of the most picturesque character. In the immense
court of their caserne in the Quartier Gramont of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
there might be seen to defile a cavalcade of all the uniforms worn by
the regiment, and of all the standards borne by it since the date of its
organization. The tendency of modern warfare is to abolish more and more
the picturesque and artistic, but the wars of the Republic and the First
Empire have contributed a series of costumes among the most martial and
the most imposing known to history.
Something of this contrast of costume may be seen in the reproduction of
M. Orange's painting from the Salon of 1891, the "Medallists of Saint
Helena," on page 175,--the annual ceremony of the old soldiers of the
First Empire depositing their memorial wreaths at the base of the
Vendôme column; and it is with a very natural impulse that the French
citizen and the French soldier of to-day turn from the bitter memories
of their last war to recall the images of those great days when the
nation was afire as it has never been since. The curious revival of
Napoleonic literature which we have witnessed within the last few years
may doubtless be ascribed in part, at least, to this longing to dispel
somewhat the national depression. There is not wanting in these memoirs
abundant testimony to the strange transformation which the casting off
of the ancient régime wrought in the whole people. In the _Consulat et
l'Empire_, M. Thiers quotes the testimony of an astonished Prussian
officer after the astonishing battle of Auerstadt in which Davout with
twenty-six thousand men overthrew sixty thousand of the soldiers trained
in the school of the great Frederick, repulsed twenty times the charges
of the cavalry considered the best in Europe, and took with his
forty-four cannon one hundred and fifteen of the enemy's. "If we had to
fight the French only with our fists, we would be vanquished. They are
small and weakly; one of our Germans could beat four of them; but under
fire they become supernatural beings. They are carried away by an
inexpressible ardor, of which no trace can be seen in our own soldiers."
In much more recent publications, the _Mémoires du sergent Bourgogne_,
the _Souvenirs d'un officier danois_, the Lieutenant Frisenberg, there
is further testimony as to the quality of this _Grande Armée_. The
latter, a young soldier, records the strong impression made upon him by
the French officers when he first met them, their sobriety, their
moderation, wonderful in the conquerors of Europe, their easy acceptance
of orders. "What will not a Frenchman dare!" he exclaims. It is this
apotheosis of military valor and efficiency which we see apostrophized
in so much contemporary national art,--as in Karbowsky's "Drums of the
Republic," Bac's spirited sketch of the return of the troops to Paris
after Marengo, Marold's "Review in the Carrousel," under the eyes of the
Emperor, and Le Blant's return of the veterans of the Republic and their
fierce impatience under the supercilious inspection of the dandies and
_incroyables_ of the capital.
The military souvenirs of the Second Empire are much less imposing.
Among the most interesting of those recently published are those of
Marshal Canrobert, taken down from his verbal recitals by M. G. Bapst,
afterward written out and corrected by the old soldier. His portrait of
Louis Napoleon is interesting; he came to Paris on the eve of the Coup
d'État and was presented to the Prince-President. "The man whom I saw
before me was small in stature; his eyes, very small, were dull and very
mild; while they were professedly looking at me, they had the
appearance, at the same time, of being directed at some much more
distant object; his black hair, smooth on his head, very much pomaded,
was long and fell below his ears and on his collar; his heavy moustache,
not waxed, covered his lower lip. He wore a frock-coat, buttoned up, and
a very high collar which enclosed the lower part of his face. He stood
with his side rather toward me, the left arm considerably in advance,
and offered me his hand with a constrained gesture. I felt, in clasping
it, as though I were grasping the hand of a paralytic, almost an
anchylosed one. He addressed to me some commonplace phrase, so
commonplace even that I no longer remember it; but he spoke with a
peculiar accent, which you would have taken for an Alsatian accent.
This was all that happened."
In the military operations of the 2d of December, Canrobert took part as
general of brigade: according to his own account, he constantly exerted
himself to suppress the fire of the troops on the citizens and to save
the lives of the latter. But when he was offered the grade of general of
division afterward, he refused it, and thereby, says one of his
commentators, "violated military discipline and condemned, himself, his
action of the day before."
Among the recent minor monographs relating to this epoch is one devoted
to the Imperial picked body-guard of a hundred men, the Cent-Gardes, by
M. Albert Verly, a fervent Bonapartist. One of his incidents is worth
quoting. One day, the Empress Eugénie, traversing her apartments,
accompanied by Colonel Verly, stopped before one of these sentries,
whose rigid immobility in the correct military attitude made her smile.
"Admit, colonel," she said, "that this perfect motionlessness is only an
appearance, and that the slightest thing would cause it to disappear."
"Your Majesty may assure yourself to the contrary," replied the colonel.
"And if I were to offer him an insult?" "I have nothing to reply to your
Majesty. You might ascertain yourself!" The Empress, knitting her brows
in an attempt to frown, approached the sentry and reproached him
severely for some imaginary infraction of discipline; stiff as a statue
in his position of salute, he made no sign whatever. Whereupon,
pretending to take offence at his silence, she dealt him a vigorous blow
on the cheek. She might as well have struck a statue! So she returned to
her apartments.
But, not willing that the affair should rest there, she ascertained his
name, and the next day, through his superiors, sent the soldier a note
of five hundred francs as some recompense for the gratuitous insult
offered him. And he immediately returned it, through the same channel,
answering that he esteemed himself as "too happy in having received on
his face the hand of his well-beloved sovereign." M. Verly considers
this response as very fine, and as justifying all that has been said
concerning the correctness of appearance and attitude, and the
intelligent and affectionate devotion which all the men of the squadron
of the Cent-Gardes maintained toward their Imperial Majesties.
[Illustration: COMPAGNIE CYCLISTE: ÉCOLE MILITAIRE DE GYMNASTIQUE AT
JOINVILLE-LE-PONT.]
One of the first acts of the military administration after the Coup
d'État was the disbanding of the National Guard throughout France. By a
decree dated from the Tuileries, January 11, 1852, the superior general
commanding was charged with its reorganization. On the 2d of December of
the same year, the new Emperor signed at Saint-Cloud the decree
promulgating the _sénatus-consulte_ ratified by the plébiscite of the
21st and 22d of November, endorsing the Empire, and made his solemn
entry into Paris. At one o'clock in the afternoon the cannon thundered,
the drums beat, the trumpets and bugles sounded: "then might be seen,"
says the official _Moniteur_, "an inspiring spectacle, the new Emperor
passing under that Arch of Triumph erected by his uncle to the glory of
the French army.... From all the ranks of the army, from the Garde
Nationale and from the people, there arose but one cry, powerful,
unanimous, drowning the sound of the cannon of the Invalides which
announced the entrance of Napoleon III into this ancient palace still
resonant with the glory of his name. His Majesty, followed by his suite,
traversed on horseback the Pavillon de l'Horloge and passed in review,
on the Place des Tuileries and the Place du Carrousel, the troops of all
arms there drawn up. He rode along the front of all the lines, receiving
everywhere the most enthusiastic acclamations. After the review, the
Emperor, followed by the generals who had formed his staff, ascended
into the grand apartments of the palace," etc.
The renewal of the traditions of the First Empire was incessantly
pursued. On the 21st of March, the President reviewed the garrison of
Paris and distributed the military medal which he had just instituted,
addressing the troops in a discourse in which he explained his object in
creating this badge of distinction; on the 10th of May, there was a
great military display on the Champ-de-Mars and the distribution of the
eagles of the colors to the army. A decree of the 12th of August, 1857,
instituted the medal of Saint Helena, given to those old soldiers of the
first Napoleon who had served in the campaigns from 1792 to 1815. The
Imperial Guard for the army, a reserve corps and corps d'élite, and the
Cent-Gardes à cheval for the service of the Imperial palace, had been
organized two years earlier. In 1867, at the culmination of the prestige
of the Empire, when "the whole _Almanach de Gotha_ passed through the
salons of the Tuileries," these crowned heads were honored with a grand
review of sixty-two thousand men in the Bois de Boulogne;--"the honors
were carried off by the artillery of the Guard; the chasseurs, the
zouaves, the _guides_, and the cuirassiers divided these
acclamations, ... all these soldiers, presenting the most brilliant
appearance, defiled before the King of Prussia, the Count Bismarck, the
general Baron von Moltke, the major-general Count von Goltz! And three
years later!..."
At the present day, the great number of these very red and blue
soldiers, officers and privates, always to be seen promenading in the
streets of Paris, the sentries on duty before all the principal public
buildings, the mounted dragoons, or _estafettes_, riding about the
streets with official messages, and the dragoons of the
Garde-Républicaine, the municipal force, on duty before the Opéra-house
on nights of performance, add greatly to the animated and picturesque
aspect of the capital. To those who were in the city in the early fall
of this year, the efficacy of a standing army to maintain public order
was abundantly demonstrated. There can be no doubt that the threatened
general strike of workmen and laborers, affecting all private and
municipal works, and even the success of the coming Exposition of 1900,
was prevented, almost in its inception, by the abundant protection
afforded those workmen who continued to labor. If it were necessary, a
single _ouvrier_, or _terrassier_, could have half a dozen soldiers or
police to protect him against the violence of those of his fellows _en
grève_, and the city was dotted with pickets of infantry and cavalry,
sergents de ville, sentinels before all unfinished buildings, railway
stations, etc. The arts of the demagogue are by no means unknown in this
land of universal suffrage, and frantic appeals were made to them on
this occasion, but the government remained entirely unimpressed, to its
praise be it said.
The drawing of the conscripts for the army by lot, and the revision of
those thus selected, were formerly conducted in the Hôtel de Ville, but
of late years have been apportioned among the _Mairies_ of the various
arrondissements. For those which offer no suitable locality for these
operations, the Palais de l'Industrie was used until its recent
demolishment. The _conseil de révision_ held its sittings in the great
Salle Saint-Jean at the back of the Hôtel de Ville, on the
rez-de-chaussée, or ground-floor. These sittings began at eight o'clock
in the morning, the members of the council took their places, according
to their rank, at a large table in the shape of a horseshoe, the general
or the colonel present at this function at the right of the president,
then the oldest conseiller général, the intendant, the mayor of the
arrondissement whose citizens were to come up for inspection, and who
was present in an advisory capacity; at the left, the conseiller of the
prefecture, the second conseiller général, the captain having charge of
the recruiting. Before the table the examining doctor took his stand,
and the patients presented themselves before him, after having been
measured, all of them as naked as they were born, and yet in a correct
military attitude, heels together, arms hanging by the side, the hands
open and the palms forward. A sufficient force of gendarmes kept this
somewhat incongruous parade in due order. And yet, in summer, a certain
odor arises which compels the least delicate of the judges to have
frequent recourse to flasks of smelling-salts judiciously provided. The
decisions of this court are without appeal, and are pronounced by the
president, either after having consulted his colleagues or in voicing
their common opinion. The conscripts are then directed by the gendarmes
toward the neighboring salle, where they resume their garments. The
_réservés_ pass into a special chamber, where a _médecin-major_
examines them carefully, either as to their eyesight or as to the action
of the heart. Attempts to avoid military service are comparatively rare
in the conseil de révision of the Seine, and the shammers are readily
detected.
[Illustration: COMPAGNIE CYCLISTE: ÉCOLE MILITAIRE DE GYMNASTIQUE AT
JOINVILLE-LE-PONT.]
Theoretically, there is an absolute equality of all classes before the
conscription. Even the law-givers have not been supposed to be exempt
from the obligation of military duty. The law of the 24th of July, 1895,
declared, in its first article, that no citizen was eligible as a member
of the Parlement unless he had fulfilled all the conditions of the
military regulations concerning active service. Those residing in
Algeria or in the colonies came under the special regulations of a law
of 1889. By article second, no member of the Parlement was to be called
upon to do military duty during the sessions of that body, unless it
were on the request of the Minister of War, by his own consent, and with
the approval of the Assemblée of which he was a member. By article
third, the members of the Parlement while doing military duty could not
participate in the deliberations, nor in the voting, of the Assemblée.
In case of convocation of the Assemblée Nationale, their military
service was suspended during the session of this body.
This general abolishing of social privileges to maintain the military
strength of the nation naturally works with a good deal of friction. On
the one hand are what might be called the inevitable tendencies of all
human society to oppose it and to violate it; and on the other, the
fierce watchfulness of the demagogues and the socialists to maintain it.
M. "Job's" amusing sketch on page 126 of the arrival of a rich conscript
at the caserne, adopts the evident and plausible view of the situation.
The new soldier brings along his footman to carry his equipments, the
officers of the regiment, colonel at the head, come out to welcome him,
the sentry on duty is petrified with astonishment. This was supposed to
be designed with reference to the celebrated M. Max Labaudy; but it is
curiously at variance with the real facts in his case. This too-rich
young man, the _Petit Sucrier_ of the Boulevards, was the son of a great
sugar refiner, deputy to the Chamber from the department of
Seine-et-Marne, and who left a fortune of more than two hundred millions
of francs. The young man in question spent his portion with commendable
freedom, but when he drew an unlucky number in the conscription he was
declared eligible, though it was said at the time that he was already
threatened with an affection of the lungs. He speedily fell ill; there
was immediately raised such a violent demagogic outcry that his illness
was feigned that "not one military commission dared to declare him unfit
for service, he was transferred from one hospital to another, from
Vernon to Rouen, from Rouen to Val-de-Grâce, from Val-de-Grâce to
Amélie-les-Bains, where he died,--died of his millions, it may be said,
for if he had been only a poor devil he would have been immediately
mustered out." The young man, fully recognizing the disability under
which he labored in the eyes of his cowardly and truckling superiors,
wrote pathetic letters from his hospitals, regretting his fatal
millions.
For the service of the city of Paris, there is a special _corps
d'élite_, the Garde Républicaine, comprising an infantry force of two
thousand two hundred and ten men and one of one hundred and ninety
mounted men. This is recruited from the sous-officiers, brigadiers,
corporals, and soldiers of the active army under certain conditions.
Each applicant must have served at least three years uninterruptedly in
the regular army, have an irreproachable record, be able to read and
write correctly, be at least twenty-four years of age and not over
thirty-five, and have a stature of, at least, 1 mètre, 66
centimètres--1.70 mètres for the cavalry. The members of this force have
special privileges of pay, pension, ability to compete for the grade of
brigadier and succeeding ones, and of resigning from the service after
having complied with the requirements of the recruiting law. Those who
serve as guards at the theatres and the race-courses have an additional
indemnity of from 75 centimes to 1 franc .25, according to the length
and nature of the service. It appeared, from statements published during
the strike in the capital in the autumn of 1898, that the soldiers and
police, of all grades, received, on an average, less pay than the
workmen whom they were protecting.
[ILLUSTRATION: LA VIE À LA CASERNE: THE MORNING COFFEE.