As we were descending the staircase, my guide explained to me that the casernes of the Ecole Militaire, capable of holding 10,000 men, at present contained only five regiments, namely,― One of hussars; The 58th and 41st of the line; And the 3rd regiment of artillery: He then conducted me through two magnificent_barrack squares, 690 feet long, separated from each other only by an iron railing. In one were several hundred soldiers (all very young) listening to the soft, pure, beautiful music of their band. The barrack-rooms, although of different sizes, were much smaller than those I had seen in the morning. On entering one, I found in it, neatly arranged around the room, nineteen iron bedsteads, 13 inches asunder. Upon them were three boards, altogether 2 feet 2 in. broad, and 6 feet 3 in. in length, supporting the same amount of bedding I had found in the temporary barracks, with a counterpane, dark drab, with a yellow border. Above each bed, on a high shelf, there ap peared the soldier's cap and knapsack; on another, beneath, were, neatly folded, two pairs of scarlet trousers, a uniform coat, and, as ornaments at each side, a yellow epaulette; below the whole were eight iron cramps, for holding bayonet, cartouch-box, &c. The nineteen muskets were on a stand near the door. I took up one; the movement of the lock was excellent. In the middle of the room, suspended from the ceiling, was a tray full of loaves of bread. In every room is constantly a man to watch it. Outside each door was affixed a list of the inmates. In the long passages communicating with the several rooms, all the windows were open. As the arrangements in the rooms of the cavalry and infantry are exactly alike, my guide now led me to a magnificent stable, 245 yards (25 yards more than one-eighth of a mile) long, full of horses, separated from each other by bails a little higher than their hocks, and from which hung a matting of straw. The horses stood on clean litter, and the ventilation was so perfect that no smell was perceptible. Over each rack was affixed the name and number of the quadruped, and the 66 name of its rider, besides which the number of each horse was cut on his fore foot. On his near thigh was branded the number of his regiment, with the letter H, signifying “ Hussar." I may here add, that every article of the soldier's dress-shirt, stockings, stock, braces, &c.-is stamped with his number. Excepting with the army at Algiers, there are no entire horses in the French cavalry. The horses are fed at six in the morning, at eleven, and at eight at night in summer, and half-past six in winter. Those of the hussar regiment were very small. In a large yard I found a rectangular bath, 60 yards long by 40 broad, surrounded by a low wall, and bounded on the outside by a paved walk, along which the soldiers, who were swimming their horses by the halters, walked. In hot weather, this cheap, sensible, and cleanly operation is usually performed at five o'clock in the evening. Lame horses, I was informed, derive much benefit by standing up to their chests for some hours in this bath. As I was leaving the yard, I stopped to listen to a number of fine, manly voices, most joyously singing together in chorus. "Ce n'est rien !"* said my guide. "It is only the soldiers in prison!" I could not, however, help thinking what a delightful contrast it was to Sterne's captive, sitting, with a rusty nail" notching a little calendar of small sticks all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there." In the middle of one of the barrack squares, in the open air, surrounded by a narrow earthen parapet, three feet high, was a circular manège, twenty-two yards in diameter, for exercising horses and for horsemanship. My guide now led me into a kitchen for twelve companies (averaging eighty men each), in which, as usual, most admirably arranged, within the narrow space of twenty-two feet square, I observed twelve semicircular "marmites" or coppers, over which were an iron shade and funnel for carrying away the steam there was consequently no unpleasant smell or heat. The fires were of wood. In a yard adjoining I found, in scarlet trousers, a number of hussars, in various attitudes, leaning over stone cisterns, in which they were washing their own white cotton gloves, stock * It is nothing! ings, handkerchiefs, and drawers, to save themselves from the regimental charges, which are as follows: Two sous a week for washing one shirt; for a pair of drawers two sous more; gloves, a sou a pair. "If a handkerchief," said my young guide, "is tied to a shirt, it is allowed- -as a point of honour-to pass as its tail, and, accordingly, no charge is made for it; but," he added with a good-humored smile, and a twist at his mustachios, very few of us possess handkerchiefs!" My conductor now led me to a door, on entering which, much to my surprise, I saw before me five handsome pier glasses, and eleven marble tables, at one of which was sitting a fine-looking sergeant of hussars, smoking; at others, several soldiers of the line playing at cards. Adjoining to this "café" was a small shop, selling tobacco, brushes,-in short, all the little things in this world that a soldier wants. After passing through a large park of artillery and of pontoons, I entered the gymnasium of the Ecole Militaire, a large open court, containing, besides all sorts of strange-looking hieroglyphics, a long, lofty gibbet, with a ladder at each end, communicating with the beam, from which were hanging four teen ropes; up which soldiers were hauling themselves until they approached the beam, beneath which they proceeded horizontally by unhooking the fourteen ropes from one set of rings to another. In another direction, one or two soldiers were ascending the lofty wall that surrounded the court by inserting the points of their fingers and toes into slight crevices that had been purposely made by the abstraction of the mortar. In front of another part of the wall men were vibrating, or swinging, by means of ropes attached to the summit. In the centre, under the command of two officers on duty, several men were performing feats which really astonished me. Some, with great agility and in various ways, vaulted on and over a sort of wooden horse; others, kneeling on it, turned over in the air like mountebanks. In another direction, on a pole about six feet from the ground, was seated a soldier, who, without touching it with his hand, raised his foot up to it, and then rose up. From a small movable scaffolding, eight feet high, several soldiers sprang forwards and then backwards on a lump of loose sand beneath. Two or three jumped in this way from the top of the gibbet, fourteen feet high. Just be fore I entered this gymnasium for the second time, I had happened within the Ecole Militaire-to meet Colonel Wood, who so gallantly distinguished himself in India on Lord Hardinge's staff; and as we evidently took much interest in the feats we were witnessing, the two officers on duty called together a number of the men. Eight were made to stoop, with their shoulders resting against each other, and, while they were in this position, three or four of their comrades, one after another, running quickly along a spring board, not only jumped over them, but, making a summerset in the air, landed very cleverly on their feet, and the officers, seeing we were somewhat astonished, increased the number of stoopers from eight to fourteen, over the whole of whom two or three men, following each other in quick succession, making a summerset in the air, and landing lightly on their feet, ran on as if no such parenthesis in their lives had occurred. From one of the officers I ascertained that all the soldiers under thirty years of age within the Ecole Militaire were required to perform gymnastic exercises twice a week for two hours at a time; but that after the age mentioned their attendance ceased to be compulsory. Having now rapidly passed through the largest of the permanent and temporary barracks in Paris, I determined, as the next step in my inquiry, to ascertain the amount of education given by France to candidates for commissions in her army. ECOLE SPÉCIALE MILITAIRE DE ST. CYR. FROM Versailles there runs a fine new, straight, glistening railway to St. Cyr; but I had just come from Paris to the former place by rail, and therefore preferred, as a change, proceeding by road. Accordingly, clambering to the top of a 'bus, which, poor little thing, was working in opposition to the St. Cyr railway, I sat looking at the pair of small punchy white horses that belonged to it, until, there proving to be no other passengers from the train, the coachman mounted beside me, and on we all tottled. The saddle-pads had been born red; but as the rest of the harness, which was equally old, was blackish, and the reins whitish, I asked the driver what was the reason of these differences. He told me that the white untanned leather of France, from its strength, is excellent for reins, but that, as transpiration"-called at a London city-ball "perspiration"-decomposes it, black leather is infinitely better for the back-bands, traces, and breeching. 66 With a long whip my companion was continually threatening rather than striking his horses; but as it was evidently out of their power to go beyond the first rudiments of a trot, his interminable conversation to me all the way to St. Cyr (two or three leagues) was about once every ten seconds interlarded by three exceedingly long, but distinctly different, drawling exclamations, which in writing can only very impertectly be described as follows (N. B. The vowels must be pronounced in French patois):- i ; u To tell the truth, the latter was almost invariably followed very quickly by "Cre! cre!" by Sacre cochon!" "Sacre matin!" and, although the horses were, as I have distinctly stated. milk-white, by "Sacre bleu !" "Voilà qu'ils se reposent jusqu'au chien !"* said he to me, pointing with his chin to a poor man, a poor wife, three poor children, and a lean dog. who, lying on their backs, sides, or curled in a ring, were all six fast asleep by the road-side. As we were jogging along I observed on my right a series of grass parks, separated from each other by high palings, in each of which were a thorough-bred mare and foal. They were the government parks for breeding horses. "C'est une jument Irlandaise !" said my comrade, pointing to a fine-looking mare. About 100 yards farther he pointed out to me with his whip an English mare, which, he said—so like an English mother-would not allow man or animal to come near her foal. On arriving at our destination, I walked towards the magnificent buildings and extensive lands I had come to visit. In the year 1686 Madame de Maintenon prevailed upon Louis XIV. to found, in the obscure little village of St. Cyr, * Look at 'em all resting themselves-down to the very dog! |