Les soldats vont à la Paille, Fr. The soldiers are going to the forge yard or depot. This term is likewise used to signify the indulgence occasionally granted to soldiers for exercise or necessary evacuations. Thus when a battalion has gone through its manual, &c. the commanding officer gives the word à la paille.
Rompre la Paille avec quelqu’un, Fr. a figurative term, signifying to quarrel or fall out with any body, in an open and unreserved manner.
Paille, Fr. likewise signifies any flaw in metals. Cette lame est fine, mais il y a quelques pailles; this blade is finely tempered, but there are some flaws in it. La lame de son épée se cassa à l’endroit ou il y avoit une paille. The blade of his sword broke where there was a flaw.
PAILLER, Fr. Palearius. An ancient body of French militia. The soldiers belonging to it were probably so called either from the circumstance of their wearing straw in their helmets, in order to know one another in action, or because they were accustomed to set fire to their enemy’s habitations, &c. with bundles of straw, which they always carried with them for that purpose. The inquisitive may be more fully satisfied on this subject by referring to Ducange’s Glossary.
PAIN de Munition, Fr. Ammunition bread. In the folio edition of marshal Saxe’s reveries, page 16, we find the following important observations on the subject of ammunition bread. He states that bread never should be given to soldiers on active service, but that they should be accustomed to eat biscuits, for the following reasons:—Biscuits will keep a considerable number of years, and every soldier can conveniently carry with him in his haversack a sufficient quantity for seven or eight days. Those officers who have served among the Venetians, will readily prove the justness of this remark. But there is a species of biscuit, or hard baked bread, that never crumbles, (called soukari by the Russians) which is preferable to any thing of the kind. It is square, and about the thickness of a nut, and takes up less room than either bread or biscuits.
Purveyors, who are interested in the business, maintain a different opinion. They tell you that bread is best for troops. Every man of experience knows the contrary; for it is notorious, that contract, or ammunition bread, is not only made of unwholesome ingredients, but that it is seldom more than half baked; which together with the water it contains, increases the weight, and consequently enhances the value. Add to this, that purveyors must unavoidably increase the expence of the army by being obliged to employ a great number of bakers, bakers’ men, waggons, and horses. Independent of the expence, it is evident, that the operations of an army must unavoidably be clogged by the necessity of providing quarters for these people, of having a quantity of hand-mills, and of employing a certain number of effective men to form detachments for their security.
It is impossible to calculate the train of robberies and inconveniences which grow out of this system, the embarrassments it occasions to a general; but above all the diseases, which bread, supplied in this manner, will always engender, and the fatigue that the troops must necessarily undergo to get their rations. Were all these mischiefs obviated, there is still another evil in reserve, which no precaution can set aside. This is the certainty that an enemy may be under, with respect to your intentions and motions, by narrowly watching the establishment and disposition of your ovens. Were I, continues the marshal, to adduce instances and facts to corroborate these observations, I might dwell considerably at large upon the subject. I do not hesitate to say, that much ill success, which is attributed to other causes, proceeds entirely from the provision and distribution of ammunition bread. He even goes farther, for he asserts unequivocally, that soldiers ought sometimes to be enured to almost every species of privation, and instead of being provided with biscuit, occasionally to receive grain, which they must be taught to bake upon iron pallets, after having bruised and made it into dough.—Marshal Turenne has observed upon the same subject in his Memoirs. Marshal Saxe, indeed, does not scruple to say, that although there might be plenty of bread, he would, in conformity to the opinion of many good officers, suffer his men to feel the want of it. I have, adds the latter, been eighteen months successively on service with troops who during the whole of that period never tasted bread, and yet never once complained or murmured. I have, on the contrary, been frequently with others that had never familiarized themselves to that privation, and who, on the first appearance of want, were disheartened. In consequence of which the very nerve of enterprise and hardihood was broken, and nothing great could be undertaken.
The modern French armies have carried this idea to an astonishing extent and with success; not only their troops in the field are supplied with biscuit, but their horses also.
PALADIN, Fr. A name given to those ancient knights who were either what the French call comtes du palais, counts of the palace, or were princes lineally descended from Charlemagne, and other old kings.
PALANKEEN, Ind. a vehicle carried on the shoulders of four men, by means of a bamboo pole extending from each end: it carries one person in a reclining posture: it has a canopy which is supported by a pole raised along the centre, from whence it is pendent on either side. The palankeens are of various kinds; some are shaped like a chair, in which the person carried sits: in others they recline or sleep, and frequently journies of 2000 miles are thus performed.