England on the idea of duty. Now, the former is rather arbitrary; its reach varies in different persons. One piques himself upon being rigid on a certain point, and thinks himself free on all the rest; in the circle of bad actions, he cuts off a segment from which he excludes himself; but this part varies according to his preferences-for example, he will be truthful in speaking, but not in writing, or the reverse. My honour consists of that wherein I place my glory, and I can place it in this as well as in that. On the contrary, the idea of duty is strict, and does not admit of the slightest compromise.'

This makes us (male and female) matter-of-fact, unimaginative, uninteresting, common-place; although it may certainly conduce to sundry prosaic qualities, such as constancy in women, or patient endurance, firmness, and intrepidity in men :—

A French officer who fought in the Crimea related to me how an English battalion of infantry destroyed two Russian regiments; the Russians fired incessantly, and did not lose a foot of ground, but they were excited and aimed badly; on the contrary, the English infantry avoided undue haste, took steady aim, and missed scarcely a single shot. The human being is ten times stronger when his pulse continues calm, and when his judgment remains free.'

In the late war the chassepot was a much superior weapon to the needle-gun; but its longer range became a positive disadvantage through the vivacity of the French, who frequently fired away all their ammunition before they had got near enough to take aim. Mr. Kinglake relates that, before the battle of the Alma had well commenced, swarms of French skirmishers were firing with a briskness and vivacity that warmed the blood of the many thousands of hearers then new to war. 'A young officer, kindling at the sound and impatient that the French should be first in action, could not help calling Lord Raglan's attention to it. But the stir of French skirmishers through thick

А

ground was no new music to Lord Fitzroy Somerset : rather, perhaps, it recalled him for a moment to old times in Estremadura and Castile, when, at the side of the great Wellesley, he learned the brisk ways of Napoleon's infantry. So, when the young officer said, "The French, my lord, are warmly engaged," Lord Raglan answered," Are they? I cannot catch any return fire." His practised ear had told him what we now know to be the truth. No troops were opposed to the advance of Bosquet's columns in this part of the field.' M. Taine states that in the Crimea the French wounded recovered less frequently than the English, because they resigned themselves less rapidly.'

Montalembert, in his L'Avenir Politique,' expatiates enthusiastically on an incident in our military annals as showing what habits of discipline and deep sense of duty can effect:—

Who can ever forget the example of antique magnanimity and Christian abnegation given some years since by the whole of an English regiment swallowed up in a shipwreck! It had been embarked on board the frigate "Birkenhead," bound for the Cape of Good Hope. The vessel struck upon a rock at a short distance from her destination. The means of transport only sufficed to land the women and children and a few infirm passengers. Officers and soldiers take to their arms, and draw up in order of battle on the poop, whilst the partial landing is effected, and also whilst the vessel is slowly sinking beneath the waves. Not one of those young, strong, armed men attempts to take the place of the weak, who are to survive, and the regiment descends entire into the abyss, martyrs of obedience and charity. To my mind, the name "Birkenhead," and the date of this shipwreck, would figure on the colours of this regiment by as good a title as the most brilliant victories.'

The troops on board (13 officers, 9 sergeants, 466 men) consisted of detachments from ten regiments; and a great number of the soldiers were drowned in their berths directly after the ship struck. According to

the narrative of Captain (afterwards Lieut.-Colonel) Wright, the senior of four officers who were saved, all the officers received their orders and had them carried out, as if the men were embarking instead of going to the bottom : there was only this difference, that I never saw any embarcation conducted with so little noise and confusion. When the vessel was just about going down, the commander called out, "All those who can swim jump overboard, and make for the boats." We begged the men not to do as the commander said, as the boats with the women must be swamped. Not more than three made the attempt.' Some reached the shore by swimming, or on spars. The commanding officer, Lieut.-Colonel Seton, of the 74th, went down with his men.

A passage in one of M. de Tocqueville's conversations with Senior1 throws light upon the question whether honour, as understood in France, or duty, as understood in England, is the surest guide, prompter, safeguard, or security :

'A Frenchman is never bold when he is on the defensive. A few hundreds of the lowest street rabble, without arms or leader, will attack an established government, raise barricades under fire, and die content if they have enjoyed the excitement of bloodshed and riot. Two hundred thousand men, armed, disciplined, seem paralysed if the law is on their side, and they are required not to attack but to resist. Their cowardice when they are in the right is as marvellous as their courage when they are in the wrong. Perhaps the reason is that, in the former case, they cannot rely on one another; in the latter case they can.'

Their cowardice (the term is M. de Tocqueville's) when on the defensive was most marvellous in the late war, when three times over they capitulated by hundreds of thousands without one determined effort to

Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with William Nassau Senior.' Edited by M. C. M. Simpson. A book replete with knowledge and reflection,

6

break out. The duty of a commander-in-chief similarly situated to Napoleon the Third at Sedan, or Marshal Bazaine at Metz, was distinctly laid down by Napoleon the First, after the capitulation of General Dupont at Baylen, with 20,000 men, in 1808. When the news reached the Emperor, at Bordeaux, he was stunned by it as by a blow. 'Is your Majesty ill?' asked Maret, on being hastily summoned. "No.' 'Has Austria declared war? Would to God it were only that.' 'What, then, has happened?' The Emperor then related the capitulation, and added: "That an army should be beaten is nothing; the fate of arms is variable, and a defeat may be repaired. But for an army to make a shameful capitulation is a stain on the French name on the glory of our arms. The wounds inflicted on honour never heal the moral effect is terrible. They say that there was no other means of saving the army, of preventing the massacre of the soldiers. Well, it would have been better for them all to have perished with their arms in their handsthat not one of them had returned.'1

Three Marshals, 6000 officers, and 173,000 men were made prisoners at Metz, including 16,000 of the Imperial Guard-the Guard qui meurt et ne se rend pas. Never before in the world's history did anything like that number of the troops of any country allow themselves to be cooped up till the iron circle was drawn round them, or remain cowed within it as the Tinchel cows the deer.' Napoleon III. told an English statesman that, with the exception of some military dash, the French were not a brave nation. They certainly were not under his régime: and making every allowance for bad leadership-for mal-administration, corruption, and incapacity-it is difficult to recognise in them the same nation whose proud boast it was that their national flag, the Tricolour, had

1 Thibadeau, vol. iii. p. 439.

made the tour of Europe on the Car of Victory. 1 The deterioration of race is so marked that moralists and physiologists have endeavoured to account for it by a combination of moral and physical causes : by the effects of the conscript system under the First Empire and by the demoralising influence of the theories of sexual intercourse notoriously prevalent and practically carried out in France. Both causes have been in operation; but, in point of fact, the French were always wanting in the calmness, firmness, and self-reliance which constitute the highest kind of bravery. What would have been the effect on a French regiment of the exhortation addressed by the Duke to the 81st, at the battle of the Nivelle: 'You must stand firm, my lads, for there is nothing behind you? Or suppose the position and composition of the contending armies at Waterloo had been reversed. Suppose an army of more than 71,000 picked British troops had attacked a scratch army of 68,000 containing less than 30,000 French-how long would the defensive positions in and about Hougomont and La Haye Sainte have been maintained? 2

Since the comparison has been frequently challenged or invited, let us proceed with it. We hardly know an instance in which the English were beaten by the

1 Lamartine's words at the Hôtel de Ville in 1848, when he contrasted the tricolour with the red. Who was the lady that, in allusion to the reluctance of the Comte de Chambord to surrender the white flag, said, 'Ce pauvre Prince, avec son drapeau blanc, me fait l'effet de Virginie, qui s'est laissée noyer plutôt que laisser tomber sa chemise?'

2 It was a stern meeting between 71,947 brave men on one side, all homogeneous and confident in their leader, and 67,655 on the other: the latter a motley host made up of Belgians, Dutchmen, Brunswickers, Hanoverians, the troops of Nassau, and, though last not least, of 22,000 British soldiers. The brunt of the action fell, as was to be expected, on the English and the gallant German legion'-(Gleig's 'Life of the Duke of Wellington.') I really believe that, with the exception of the old Spanish infantry, I have got not only the worst troops, but the worst equipped army, with the worst staff, that ever was brought together'-(The Duke of Wellington's Despatch, 25th June, 1815.)