[135] Contributed by Prof. Frederic L. Paxson.
COMMUNICATIONS
“CAMOUFLAGE” AND “EATLESS DAYS” TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
The war in Europe has revived, and brought into common use, in all languages, the term “camouflage,” denoting any contrivance to hide or disguise by one side to deceive and confuse the enemy. This term, if derived from the French camouflet, pronounced cam-u-flay, appears in the International Encyclopedia and is defined as: “A stinking compound in paper cases used in siege attacks to blow into the faces of sappers and miners to confuse them.” The word must have been buried, for I find no mention of it in any other encyclopædia. The use of the term in a wider sense appears in The Letters to Authors, of Voltaire, dated 1730, where he savagely characterizes a rival writer of that period thus in rhyme:
Rousseau sujet au Camouflet,
Fut autrefois chasse dit-on.
Du theatre à coups de sifflet,
Du Paris à coups de baton.
Chez les Germains chacun fait comme,