Also the Legion presents a pleasing sight to a soldier's eyes, as with bayonets fixed the men swing by, each battalion, company and file at its proper distance. The tramp of feet resounds with clockwork regularity, in union with the musical rhythm of the band, and the blare of the bugles, crashing out the regimental march with its rattling chorus, the words seeming to hover over the lips of all the men:
"Tiens voila du boudin! voila du boudin! voila du boudin!
Pour les Alsaciens, les Suisses et les Lorrains,
Pour les Belges il n'y en a point,
Pour les Belges il n'y en a point,
Car ce sont des tireurs au flanc.
Pour les Belges il n'y en a point,
Pour les Belges il n'y en a point,
Car ce sont des tireurs au flanc."
No other regiment in France can approach the Legion for smartness at drill and on parade. The men are proud of the reputation, and make every effort to maintain it.
The bands of the 1st and 2nd Régiments Étrangers are of the best. That of the first of these corps is particularly good, and it possesses a weird and barbaric sort of musical instrument—if so it can be called—which was captured in an engagement with the troops of the famous Arab chief Abd-el-Kader, some sixty years ago.
It consists of a haft of polished hard wood about 5 feet long; at the top of this is a big silver crescent, and below, at intervals of about 6 inches one from the other, and on either side are five metal brackets, the ends of which are decorated with long streamers of horse-hair dyed a bright red. From these are suspended a multitude of small silver bells, producing a gay and exhilarating sound when shaken in cadence with the music. When the regiment is on the march the detachment of sappers is several paces ahead of the band.
Like their confrères in our own army these men carry axes, spades and saws; the original idea of their presence there being, I suppose, that they might clear the route for the troops behind.
However, taking into consideration the existing railways and good roads of to-day, one may safely conclude that their presence in modern infantry corps is due rather to a respect for tradition than to actual utility.
The corporal who was in command of the sappers, at the time I am writing of, was the biggest man in the regiment. He was six feet four, and broad in proportion. He was of Belgian nationality, and called Mertens, and was the hero of an episode of which all the regiment was justly proud. This incident took place at the capture of the fortified town of Sontay, in Tonquin, on the 16th December, 1883, which place was defended at the time by Prince Hoang-Ke-View, governor of the province, with about twenty thousand troops, composed principally of Chinese blackflag braves.
When the fire from the French gun-boats and field artillery had made a breach in the thick walls of the city, Admiral Courbet, who was in command of the expedition, launched a battalion of Arab light infantry (Tirailleurs Algériens) against the position.