our amateur officers cannot be kept at their posts. See the Duke’s despatches, passim. When they cannot return home on duty, or on sick leave, or on private urgent affairs, they do not hesitate even to resign their commissions.
Hence the short service and want of experience of our officers, particularly in the cavalry. At the end of the Crimean war, several of the captains and the whole of the subalterns of some of the Crimean regiments had two years’ service, and the casualties by death and sickness did not warrant such promotion and so much inexperience.
The French have a fine force of cavalry, there being at Versailles as many as seven thousand horses, which are of a wiry, serviceable description. Great pains have been taken to improve the breed of horses for army purposes. The men look well, and are counted efficient, but for some reason or other, the cavalry is not held in the same estimation as the other branches of the service.
A Frenchman is a poor horseman; he is not made for sitting on a horse; he has no hands, his whole weight is on the curb, and altogether he never seems at home on horseback. They have no school in France for horsemanship, like our hunting-field; and a light hand, and an easy seat are things unknown. As long as a Frenchman does not tumble off, it is a matter of indifference, whether his hands are near his horse’s ears or his own. The last thing he thinks of is a ride into the country for the pleasure of the exercise, and he no more would keep a horse for that purpose, than an Englishman would a camel for his dog-cart. When he does keep a horse, it is for the Bois de Boulogne. There he sees the world, and what is more, the world sees him, his rose-coloured gloves, his gold-mounted whip, and his prancing barb; a wretched animal with weak hams, that comes from Algiers, but quite the fashion just now, having a long mane and tail. There he sits in his tight clothes, strapped down to his boots (straps in the second half of the nineteenth century!) and then comes an English gentleman, loosely dressed, and cantering along, at ease with himself and his horse. However we have a deal to learn from each other; and much as we excel as masters of a horse, we cannot compare with them as horse masters. They can give us lessons in general stable management, in their shoeing, in their veterinary art, and in kindness to their horses, and to the rest of the dumb creation. This is proved by the general condition of their horses, and by the fact that though most of their draught horses are entire, a vicious animal is seldom seen. Their coats seldom stare, though the climate is as variable, and in winter much more rigorous than that of England; and during the time I was in Paris, I never saw a painfully lame horse, even in a hack carriage, or one with a sore back. A French coachman and his horses are the best of friends—they know him well, and they are never so brutally treated as in countries which have a Martin’s act.
But our neighbours are very kind to all the dumb creation. Even the little birds, such as sparrows and linnets, are protected by law under the plea of their being supposed to destroy the caterpillars, grubs, and insects in the fields. The sparrows in the Tuileries gardens are quite tame; and so are the wood-pigeons, which with us are as wild as hawks. A man may be seen feeding them with bread. The sparrows light on his hand, and he throws them into the air with a piece of bread, which they catch in their beaks as it falls.
But I am running away from the French army. Not that I am afraid of it. Our men can do their duty as of old; and our officers, being better educated and drinking less, are probably not much inferior to, or less clear in the head than Wellington and his lieutenants. But if we are allowed to do so, we ought to rest contented under the stock of our old laurels. The fortune of war is a curious element in the chances of a campaign, and as we have everything to lose by a war, I would rather have any other nation for an enemy than the French.
*****
The eyes of Madame Blot are red; she eats less dinner than ever. When Blot goes out at nine o’clock, she tells me that Alfred has passed his examination at last, and has been promoted to a regiment stationed at Lyons. While she is yet speaking Marguérite enters. Her heart also is full, and I go out to let them unbosom. After waiting twenty minutes at the corner, I meet Marguérite going home. It is a beautiful night, and we walk along the Boulevards, which are full of people. Something has happened. The shop has never been a good business, there is a difficulty about the rent, and she and her mother are going back to Strasbourg. I could have assisted them with a little, but only a little, and I am therefore greatly relieved by her saying the difficulty is eleven hundred francs—a sum far beyond me—and that it falls upon a rich old uncle at Strasbourg, who is caution, or security, for them.
She is sorry to go, and I believe her: I am sorry to lose her, and of course she believes me. I gave her a small gold compass—not the one you gave me, Oh, Laura! to keep my heart straight, for that shall be found between me and my flannel when the winds have ceased to blow, but one that cost me four francs and a-half then and there. We are at the shop-door. Marguérite and I began by being lovers, but we elevated the sentiment and became the best of friends, and, for six weeks, the most regular of correspondents. I gave her a kiss, and never saw her again.
I could no more have stayed in Paris after the party in the kitchen had broken up, than I could have slept in a church after being at a wedding. So, next morning, I packed up my things, and having, as in duty bound, saluted Madame on both sides of the cheek and paid my bill, I called a voiture, and that night I was in Dieppe.
Sterne tells a story in his Sentimental Journey of a respectable-looking French beggar, who whispered something into the ear of every lady that passed him in the street, and every one turned round and gave him something. Sterne found that he had paid each woman a compliment.
I never believed this story. At Dieppe I had in French money the sum of seventy-five francs