This last document is very difficult to procure. I was able to have it at my disposal for a few days only. The minister of war sent a definite number to the corps, and for these the corps are responsible. Each officer must return his copy after the manœuvres.”
General Gonse.—“After the firing lessons.”
M. Labori.—“Pardon me; it says after the manœuvres; and that is very interesting, for here is an officer going to the manœuvres, who can use this document during the manœuvres, having not to restore it till after the manœuvres. Then I ask General Gonse: Why is this document difficult to procure, and why could the officer in question have it for a few days only?”
General Gonse.—“Regarding that, you should ask an officer of the third division,—the artillery division of the war department. I give only an opinion. I believe that, when these documents exist only as projects, the copies are numbered. They give perhaps ten to a regiment of artillery; these ten copies must be restored intact after use of them, so that, if they gave only ten, and there were thirty or forty officers, no single officer could keep his copy long. But this is only a supposition, because the distribution does not concern me. I know it only by hearsay.”
M. Labori.—“But just now it was necessarily an artilleryman. I say, at any rate, that it is necessarily a corps officer, for he would have a manual only during the time of the manœuvres. Is that General Gonse’s interpretation?”
General Gonse.—“Yes. But that does not prove that it is a regiment officer. It must be an artillery officer, and not an officer of a regiment of infantry, for this manual never goes to the infantry.”
The Judge.—“You said just now that it must be an artillery officer and a licentiate.”
General Gonse.—“It was not I who said that; it was General de Pellieux. But I corroborate him, because the enumeration of the documents in the bordereau concerns the artillery division. The hydraulic check does not concern us at the staff. It is a technical matter in the artillery domain. The matter of the troupes de couverture concerns at least three bureaus of the staff,—the first, third, and fourth. The writer of the bordereau then must have been an officer initiated in the work of these three bureaus.”
The Judge.—“My inquiry concerned the words ‘and at the same time a licentiate.’”
General Gonse.—“The licentiates remain two years with the staff, passing six months in each of the four bureaus.”