extraordinary place, as high and as large as a church, full, from top to bottom, of all sorts of odd-looking things, among which was a wooden horse without a skin, and another with one. On the outside, in the open air, was another, also replete with objects that looked as if they had been constructed by a mad carpenter. In the surrounding wall, fifteen feet high, were crevices in the mortar, in which, by the insertion of toes and tips of fingers, the young candidates for commissions in the Line were taught to climb to the top.

Eastward about three hundred yards, I found—in the middle of a spacious well-stocked garden-the Infirmary, or hospital, in which the young men who are sick are carefully watched over by seven Sœurs de la Charité.

In front of the line of buildings surrounding the "Cour de Rivoli," the "Cour de Marengo," the "Cour d'Austerlitz," and the "Cour de Cuisine," are extensive gardens belonging to the General, and. adjoining, a very large, rectangular, open space, called the "Cour de Wagram," used for military drill. Beyond is a large field of uneven ground, called the "Champ de Mars." On the right of all these runs diagonally a practising ground for guns, mortars, and small arms. of nearly a mile in length.

On entering the Champ de Mars, at about two o'clock, I found two companies of the élèves going through various manoeuvres in the presence of a Chef de Bataillon, who, in uniform and on horseback, held in his hand the notes of duties for the day; but the words of command were given by the élèves, who are taught seriatim to act the parts of all ranks, from a private up to that of the Chef de Bataillon who superintends them. They are also, for an hour or two every day, made first to trace on the ground, and then practically to construct, fieldworks; and accordingly, some were employed in finishing one, the parapet of which fourteen feet high, was surrounded by a ditch six feet deep. Among the works they had completed, I observed, with great interest, several ovens for campaigning"fours de campagne"-very ingeniously constructed beneath the surface of the ground. Adjoining to these they had been taught to construct, for the purpose of cooking, boiling caldrons. &c., en bivouac," holes, from which little subterranean flues, as if they had been burrowed by a mole, ran for the admittance of air and for the exit of smoke. At the further end existed a small park of nine pieces of artillery, gabions,

6.

fascines, several sheds full of spades, pick-axes, &c., a yard containing shot and shells, and a powder magazine.

Beyond the Champ de Mars, in the long practising ground I have described, I found a butt and three batteries, one of which, with four embrasures, 550 yards from the butt, had been lately made by the élèves.

We now walked up to a party of them in heavy marching order (with their knapsacks on their backs), employed in practising with the new muskets and with fixed bayonets at a target, distant 330 yards. Some fired at it erect; others, by bending down on their right knee, and then placing their left elbow on the left thigh, obtained a rest apparently of great use. The recoil of the musket in the hands of these young men was very violent indeed; and yet, by the report the officer superintending them showed me, it appeared they had, at the distance above named, struck the target (6 feet 6 inches high by 9 feet 3 inches, made to represent four men standing together) once in ten times, which, he observed to me, was about the usual

average.

66 mus

Each élève, or candidate for a commission in the Line, during the two years he is at the establishment of St. Cyr, is required to fire per annum, at various distances, twenty-eight balls for muskets, and the same number for carbines, quetons" for cavalry, and pistols. A record is kept of every bullet that hits the target, and at the end of the year a prize, consisting of a pair of pistols, is awarded to the best shot; besides which the best thirty are assembled to fire in presence of the General, who gives a second pair of pistols to the best performer before him. During the second year only, each subdivision fire-from distances of 550, 660, and 770 yards-two shells from mortars, one from a howitzer, and nine shot from cannons, and, as in the case of small-arms, a pair of pistols is awarded to the best marksman.

At a considerable distance off, in the open country, I observed several of the young men very intently occupied in walking together in groups, and then suddenly stopping. On reaching them I was introduced to the officer (the adjutant of artillery) in charge of the party. The object of the instruction was as follows: the officer pointed out to them a tree about 250 yards off, and calling to them by their names (in the French regiments of the line the men are called by their numbers), he

inquired of each, before all the rest, what he considered was that distance? and recording in the book he held in his hand the answer, he repeated seriatim the same question to every one until all their replies were put down. The precise distance was then measured with a chain by two of the élèves, followed by all the rest. As soon as it was ascertained, the officer, calling around him the whole of his party, announced it to them, and having done so, he read out loud the name, (Monsieur * * *) with the distance he had estimated, and in like manner that of every one present; several had guessed it within ten yards. For the line, who use the common musket, the extreme distance of this practice is 440 yards; for the chasseurs à pied, the average range of whose muskets is supposed to be 1100 yards, the distances practised are up to 1320 yards.

While the British army, from motives of false economy, has since the war ending in 1815 been gradually sinking in its equipment, and, in exercising, to a state of inferiority for which no difference in "pluck" or physical strength can possibly compensate, the French army has been, and is, devoting extraordinary attention to ball-firing.

By all high military authorities on the Continent it is considered that the new French musket will, by paralysing old routine manœuvres and tactics, make great alterations in the art of war.

Heavy columns can no longer, as hitherto, remain at 600 or 700 yards. Charges by cavalry or with bayonet will consequently be more difficult and rare. Light artillery (six-pounders, for instance) will no longer be serviceable at the distance at which they will be kept by the new musket; and accordingly, the contest in future must be between the superior skill and arrangements. in all ways. of musket-firing.

The French attach great importance to this art; and as their new musket, which in theory we are, I believe, partially about to adopt, requires the careful study and practice which they are devoting to it, it is evident that, if the British soldier, who is at present but a very poor shot, is to continue to be deprived of the ammunition necessary for his instruction, our troops will, by a new element of war, be felled from a distance, without power to return the blow.

In the mean while, the French officers do not hesitate to

foretell that the fate of battles will henceforward, in a great degree, depend upon the question of which of the two armies. engaged has attained the greatest degree of perfection in ballfiring in general, and in the scientific application of the new musket in particular. And it is because they practise a great Ideal that it is desirable we should be much more liberal in our consumption of ammunition for this purpose than we have been or are.

In the British service, the half-yearly allowance for ballpractice, totally inadequate as it is, if not demanded within certain periods, is irrecoverable. There are many of our barracks where, for want of an appropriate place for practice, it cannot be used; and after all, very few, indeed, furnish a site for a 500-yards range.

On returning to the Ecole the General commanding was good enough to give me lithographed copies of the minutest details of the different courses of studies within and without the school, of the several companies of each division, of all the interior regulations by which they were governed, of the punishments awarded for different offences; and besides this liberal, high-minded treatment of a stranger and a foreigner, the officer who had had the irksome trouble of going with me over the whole establishment insisted on accompanying me to the railway-station, at which, as soon as I had arrived, with geat politeness he took off his hat, and unconsciously paying an infinitely greater compliment to himself than to he gave me his "adieu !"

me,

On returning to Versailles, I again, from the great esplanade, observed for a moment the outside of the palace, a picturesque and rather heterogeneous mixture of lightningconductors, blue slates, new chimneys, old windows, white and red walls, gilt iron railings, and statues. In the evening 1 dined with the British Ambassador, at his delightful and hospitable country residence at Versailles.

ÉCOLE D'ÉTAT MAJOR.

ON entering a small door adjoining to a very large portecochere, I saw before me two spacious yards full of young men, apparently officers, in uniform, sitting with their coats unbuttoned in various attitudes, each busy with a pencil in his right hand, their left arms being all employed in nursing or supporting a large rectangular drawing-board, on which, from their respective stations, they were sketching the various architectural appearances of the complicated buildings before them. Some were stooping, with their faces only a few inches from their boards; others, erectly, with their right arms stretched out, were measuring by their pencils the particular angle of the lines they were copying; two or three bad a leg cocked up on the other knee to help to support the hoard; one wore spectacles, and the nose of one, apparently for want of a shortsighted pair, kept almost rubbing itself against its board, as if, like the pencil close beside it, it were delineating a chimney, a window, or a long crooked zinc pipe. The colonel commanding was also in the yard, and, on my producing to him my order from the Ministre de la Guerre to see the establishment, with great kindness and politeness he said he would take me over it himself.

66

Previous to 1815 the French had no special system of education for staff-officers, but before the army of occupation had left their territory, the Minister of War, Marshal Gouvion Saint Cyr, framed and presented to the legislature, on the 10th March, 1818, the draft of a law for the establishment not only of a college or école" for the education of staff-officers, but which was to possess the exclusive privilege of supplying to the army all it required; and thus, instead of allowing every general, as a little piece of private patronage, to select as an officer of the staff of the army in which he has to serve his own silly son, nephew, or perhaps, unsight, unseen, the near relation of some pretty woman who had pestered him for the appointment-in short, instead of staff