[School for Breaking Young Horses.]—The best horses purchased at the remount dépôts are selected for the officers, and sent to this place to be trained. The number is fixed at 100 as a minimum. These, as soon as their education is complete, are sold or given, according to the orders of the Minister of War, to those officers who need a remount—in preference, to officers of the general staff and staff corps, those of the artillery, and mounted officers of infantry. These officers may also select from among the other horses of the school, with the approval of the commandant.
[School of Farriers.]—This is attached to the cavalry school, and is under the direction of the commandant. It is composed of private soldiers who have served at least six months with their regiments, and are blacksmiths or horse-shoers by trade. There are usually two men from each mounted regiment. The course lasts two years; it comprises reading, writing, arithmetic, equitation, the anatomy of the horse, thorough instruction as to all diseases, injuries, and deformities of the foot, something of the veterinary art in general, the selection of metals, making shoes, nails, tools, &c., shoeing horses. The establishment has a large shoeing shop and yard, a recitation-room, museum, and store-rooms. In the recitation-room there are skeletons of horses, men, &c., as well as some admirable specimens of natural preparations in comparative anatomy, a complete collection of shoeing-tools, specimens of many kinds of shoes, &c.—Annuaire de l’Instruction 1861, and “Observations.”
[THE SCHOOL OF APPLICATION FOR THE STAFF.]
AT PARIS.
[DUTIES OF THE FRENCH STAFF.]
The staff is the center from which issue and to which are addressed all orders and military correspondence.
The officers of the staff are divided into chiefs of the staff, sub-chiefs, staff-officers, and aides-de-camp.
The colonels and lieutenant-colonels are employed as chiefs of the staff in the different military districts of France, and in the divisions of the army on active service. The ordinary posts of the majors and captains is that of aides-de-camp to general officers.
When several armies are united together under a commander-in-chief, the chief of the general staff takes temporarily the title of Major-Général, the general officers employed under him that of Aide-Major-Général.
The duties of the chief of the staff are to transmit the orders of the general; to execute those which he receives from him personally, for field-works, pitching camps, reconnaissances, visits of posts, &c.; to correspond with the commanding officers of the artillery and the engineers, and with the commissariat, in order to keep the general exactly informed of the state of the different branches of the service; to be constantly in communication with the different corps, so as to be perfectly master of everything relating to them; to prepare for the commander-in-chief and for the minister of war, returns of the strength and position of the different corps and detachments, reports on marches and operations, and, in short, every necessary information.