Miss Jemima hesitatingly.—"Do you think so?"
Mrs Hazeldean.—"Yes, certainly. Frank—Frank—as you pass by the Casino, call on Mr Riccabocca, give this note, and say we shall be heartily glad if he will come."
Frank nods.
"Stop a bit," cried the Squire. "If Rickeybockey's at home, 'tis ten to one if he don't ask you to take a glass of wine! If he does, mind, 'tis worse than asking you to take a turn on the rack. Faugh! you remember, Harry?—I thought it was all up with me."
"Yes," cried Mrs Hazeldean, "for heaven's sake, not a drop! Wine indeed!"
"Don't talk of it," cried the Squire, making a wry face.
"I'll take care, sir!" said Frank, laughing as he disappeared within the stable, followed by Miss Jemima, who now coaxingly makes it up with him, and does not leave off her admonitions to be extremely polite to the poor foreign gentleman, till Frank gets his foot into the stirrup; and the pony, who knows whom he has got to deal with, gives a preparatory plunge or two, and then darts out of the yard.
[MILITARY LIFE IN NORTH AFRICA.][16]
In days of national antipathy, now happily bygone, it was a vulgar English prejudice that Frenchmen were great only as cooks and dancing-masters. In popular belief, the fiddle and the frying-pan were their insignia, pirouettes and fricassees their highest achievements. Peace and steam have exploded these exaggerated notions in the minds even of the least intelligent. They would be inexcusable in the days of cheap excursions to Paris and electric telegraphs beneath the billows of the Channel. Moreover, Englishmen have learned to rival what they once contemned; native talent has been encouraged; Britain glories in cooks who will lower their culinary flag to no foreign kickshaw-compounder that ever stirred a sauce or frothed a soufflé; and in professors of the choregraphic who would scorn to be excelled by any Gaul that ever carried a kit. A higher standard has been fixed for the capacity of Frenchmen. Rivalled in cookery and capers, their claims are admitted to first-rate excellence in two nobler sciences—the military, namely, and the dramatic. Sometimes they unite the two. Witness Napoleon, the greatest warrior and most consummate actor France can boast. Certainly Frenchmen show nowhere to such advantage as on the stage or in the field, by the light of the foot-lamps or through the smoke of the bivouac. So strongly, indeed, are they imbued with the military and dramatic essences, that these are continually perceptible when they are engaged in pursuits of a most opposite character. The conscription and national-guard system give to the whole nation a martial tinge, from which the most pacific callings are no preservative. In France, men whose existence passes in the measurement of calico or the parcelling of groceries, often seem, in tone, costume, and mustache, to pertain to the camp rather than the counter. And in the gravest occupations, as in the most commonplace passages of life, a large majority of Frenchmen appear to us English to be continually acting. Their love of effect, contrast, and epigram, gives a theatrical air to their most ordinary as to their most important proceedings. Nations, like individuals, view each other through their own peculiar spectacles; and the French are as much struck and amused with English phlegm and reserve as we are with their vehemence, gesticulations, and demonstrativeness. We are not, however, here preluding to a dissertation on national character, but to a notice of some pleasant military sketches by a French officer. We have the highest opinion of Frenchmen as soldiers, not merely on account of their bravery, which is universally admitted—by none more freely than by those who have fought and beaten them—but by reason of their many other excellent military qualities—of their discipline, temperance, subordination, and of that sentiment of soldierly honour which we believe to pervade the French troops to an extent never exceeded, and rarely equalled, in any other European army. The works of our own military historians abound with traits of French chivalry and heroism, as they also do with acknowledgments of their peculiar aptitude for war, of their cheerfulness on the march, their patience under privations, their skill—and this is no slight virtue in soldiers—in shifting for themselves, and making the most of a bad bivouac, uncomfortable quarters, or a scanty ration. All these qualities are well displayed in M. de Castellane's sketches of French military life. The date of his campaigns is recent, the scene Africa; his opponents were Arabs and Kabyles; his comrades, Spahis, Zouaves, Chasseurs d'Orleans, and Chasseurs d'Afrique. To some, a brief explanation of these terms may be useful. Spahis are Arab cavalry in the French service, officered by Frenchmen, and with an admixture of European soldiers in the ranks. The Zouaves are a crack infantry corps, similarly composed, and attired, like the Spahis, in Oriental costume. The Chasseurs of Orleans are light infantry, wonderfully active, and wearing dark uniforms. Finally, the Chasseurs of Africa are a very fine body of French cavalry, raised expressly for African service, dressed in light blue, well mounted, and armed with carbine and sabre, some with lances. Like the Zouaves, this last-named corps is a favourite with adventurous volunteers, ambitious of distinction and the epaulet. In its fourth squadron, the author of these sketches held an officer's commission. He writes like a gentleman and a soldier; his style is pointed and to the purpose, and free from egotism and affectation. He himself shared in some of the warlike episodes he tells of; others are derived from the verbal or written narratives of his comrades. They comprise a great variety of details, and fully initiate us into the phases of a soldier's life in Africa. Numerous as are the works, French, English, and German, of which French conquest and colonisation in Africa have furnished the theme, there was still abundant room for this one, taking up, as it does, that branch of the subject which writers generally have had least opportunity of appreciating—the joys and sorrows, hardships and exploits, perils and sufferings, of the French soldier in Algeria. A fresh interest is also imparted to it by the prominent part lately and still taken in public affairs in France by men who have risen into distinction through their valour and military talents during the long struggle with the Arabs. Comparatively inattentive as we in England were to the razzias and skirmishes of the African campaigns, the names of Changarnier, Cavaignac, and Lamoricière can hardly be said to have dwelt in our memories until revolution and civil strife in their own country brought them to the front. It now is interesting to revert to those earlier days of their career, when they fought the Bedouin on the arid plains and in the perilous defiles of North Africa, fostering in that rough school the sternness and tenacity of character which they since have more than once had occasion usefully to display amidst the turmoil of domestic discord.