Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 68, No 420, October 1850

Parson. – "Stop! stop! trump my diamond?"

The Captain, solemnly. – "Trick turned – play on, Squire."

Squire. – "The king of diamonds."

Mrs Hazeldean. – "Lord! Hazeldean – why, that's the most barefaced revoke – ha – ha – ha! trump the queen of diamonds and play out the king! well I never – ha – ha – ha!"

Captain Barnabas, in tenor. – "Ha, ha, ha!"

Squire. – "And so I have, bless my soul – ho, ho, ho!"

Captain Barnabas, in bass. – "Ho – ho – ho."

Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of his adversaries and the firm clear tone of Captain Barnabas: – "Three to our score! – game!"

Squire, wiping his eyes. – "No help for it, Harry – deal for me! Whom ought I to ask, Mrs Dale? (waxing angry.) First time I ever heard the hospitality of Hazeldean called in question!"

Mrs Dale. – "My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, but listeners – you know the proverb."

Squire, growling like a bear. – "I hear nothing but proverbs ever since we have had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, marm."

Mrs Dale, sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly accosted. – "It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr Hazeldean."

Squire. – "What! Rickeybockey?"

Mrs Dale, attempting the pure Italian accentuation. – "Signor Riccabocca."

Parson, slapping his cards on the table in despair. – "Are we playing at whist, or are we not?"

The Squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to Captain Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearts. Now the Captain has left queen, knave, and two other hearts – four trumps to the queen and nothing to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall of that king of hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a matter of reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The Captain hesitates, and not liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their being trumped by the Squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the other suits in which he has not a card that can assist his partner, resolves, as becomes a military man, in such dilemma, to make a bold push and lead out trumps, in the chance of finding his partner strong, and so bringing in his long suit.

Squire, taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by the Captain – "Mrs Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked Rickeybockey – time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for those foreign chaps – he won't come – that's all I know!"

Parson, aghast at seeing the Captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades of which he has only one, (the cards all falling in suits) while he has not a single other chance of a trick in his hand. – "Really, Squire, we had better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary way – jabber – jabber – jabber!"

Squire. – "Well, we must be good children, Harry. What! – trumps, Barney? Thank ye for that!" And the Squire might well be grateful, for the unfortunate adversary has led up to ace king knave – with two other trumps. Squire takes the Parson's ten with his knave, and plays out ace king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the Captain's queen and his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of spades of which the Parson has only one, – and the Captain, indeed, but two – forces out the Captain's queen, and wins the game in a canter.

Parson, with a look at the Captain which might have become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder. – "That, I suppose, is the newfashioned London play! In my time the rule was 'First save the game, then try to win it.'"

Captain. – "Could not save it, sir."

Parson, exploding. – "Not save it! – two ruffs in my own hand – two tricks certain till you took them out! Monstrous! The rashest trump" – Seizes the cards – spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling – tries to show how five tricks could have been gained – (N.B. it is short whist, which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall) can't make out more than four – Captain smiles triumphantly – Parson in a passion, and not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again, and falling back in his chair, groans, with tears in his voice. – "The cruellest trump! the most wanton cruelty!"

The Hazeldeans in chorus. – "Ho – ho – ho! Ha – ha – ha!"

The Captain, who does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The Squire gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife – "Write to Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend two or three days here. There, Mrs Dale, you hear me?"

"Yes," said Mrs Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke at the loudness of the Squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm a sad nervous creature."

"Beg pardon," muttered Mr Hazeldean, turning to his son, who, having got tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio County History, which was the only book in the library that the Squire much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study, together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but which he had reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams – an old Saxon family, as the name evidently denotes – had once possessed lands in that very county. And the Captain – during his visits to Hazeldean Hall – was regularly in the habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity with the following paragraph therein: – "To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled itself Higges, till, the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually assumed the appellation of Higges-in-botham, and in process of time, yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham."

"What, Frank! my County History!" cried the Squire. "Mrs H. he has got my County History!"

"Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something about the County."

"Ay, and History too," said Mrs Dale, malevolently – for the little temper was by no means blown over.

Frank. – "I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm very much interested just at present."

The Captain, putting down the cards to cut. – "You've got hold of that passage about Botham Hall, page 706, eh?"

Frank. – "No; I was trying to make out how far it is to Mr Leslie's place, Rood Hall. Do you know, mother?"

Mrs Hazeldean. – "I can't say I do. The Leslies don't mix with the county; and Rood lies very much out of the way."

Frank. – "Why don't they mix with the county?"

Mrs Hazeldean. – "I believe they are poor, and therefore I suppose they are proud: they are an old family."

Parson, thrumming on the table with great impatience. – "Old fiddledee! – talking of old families when the cards have been shuffled this half hour!"

Captain Barnabas. – "Will you cut for your partner, ma'am?"

Squire, who has been listening to Frank's inquiries with a musing air. – "Why do you want to know the distance to Rood Hall?"

Frank, rather hesitatingly. – "Because Randal Leslie is there for the holidays, sir."

Parson. – "Your wife has cut for you, Mr Hazeldean. I don't think it was quite fair; and my partner has turned up a deuce – deuce of hearts. Please to come and play, if you mean to play."

The Squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is decided by a dexterous finesse of the Captain against the Hazeldeans. The clock strikes ten: the servants enter with a tray; the Squire counts up his own and his wife's losings; and the Captain and Parson divide sixteen shillings between them.

Squire. – "There, Parson, I hope now you'll be in a better humour. You win enough out of us to set up a coach and four."

"Tut!" muttered the Parson; "at the end of the year, I'm not a penny the richer for it all."

And, indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was perfectly true, for the Parson portioned out his gains into three divisions. One-third he gave to Mrs Dale, for her own special pocket-money; what became of the second third he never owned, even to his better half – but certain it was, that every time the Parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown, which nobody could account for, found its way to the poor-box; while the remaining third, the Parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained: but I have no manner of doubt that, at the year's end, it got to the poor quite as safely as if it had been put into the box.

The party had now gathered round the tray, and were helping themselves to wine and water, or wine without water – except Frank, who still remained poring over the map in the County History, with his head leaning on his hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair.

"Frank," said Mrs Hazeldean, "I never saw you so studious before."

Frank started up, and coloured, as if ashamed of being accused of too much study in anything.

The Squire, with a little embarrassment in his voice. – "Pray, Frank, what do you know of Randal Leslie?"

"Why, sir, he is at Eton."

"What sort of a boy is he?" asked Mrs Hazeldean.

Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered – "They say he is the cleverest boy in the school. But then he saps."

"In other words," said Mr Dale, with proper parsonic gravity, "he understands that he was sent to school to learn his lessons, and he learns them. You call that sapping – I call it doing his duty. But pray, who and what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed, Squire?"

"Who and what is he?" repeated the Squire, in a low growl. "Why, you know, Mr Audley Egerton married Miss Leslie the great heiress; and this boy is a relation of hers. I may say," added the Squire, "that he is as near a relation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean. But all I know about the Leslies is, that Mr Egerton, as I am told, having no children of his own, took up young Randal, (when his wife died, poor woman,) pays for his schooling, and has, I suppose, adopted the boy as his heir. Quite welcome. Frank and I want nothing from Mr Audley Egerton, thank heaven."

"I can well believe in your brother's generosity to his wife's kindred," said the Parson sturdily, "for I am sure Mr Egerton is a man of strong feeling."

"What the deuce do you know about Mr Egerton? I don't suppose you could ever have even spoken to him."

"Yes," said the Parson, colouring up, and looking confused, "I had some conversation with him once;" and observing the Squire's surprise, he added – "when I was curate at Lansmere – and about a painful business connected with the family of one of my parishioners."

"Oh! one of your parishioners at Lansmere – one of the constituents Mr Audley Egerton threw over, after all the pains I had taken to get him his seat. Rather odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr Dale!"

"My dear sir," said the Parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of conciliatory expostulation, "you are so irritable whenever Mr Egerton's name is mentioned at all."

"Irritable!" exclaimed the Squire, whose wrath had been long simmering, and now fairly boiled over. – "Irritable, sir! I should think so: a man for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr Dale! a man for whose sake I was called a 'prize ox,' Mr Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in a market-place, Mr Dale! a man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood, by an officer in his Majesty's service, who lodged a ball in my right shoulder, Mr Dale! a man who had the ingratitude, after all this, to turn his back on the landed interest – to deny that there was any agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best farmers I ever had, Mr Dale! – a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency which was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew! Good heavens! a pretty parson you are, to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew! Nice ideas you must have of Christianity. Irritable, sir!" now fairly roared the Squire, adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud of a brow, which evinced a menacing ferocity that might have done honour to Bussy d'Amboise or Fighting Fitzgerald. "Sir, if that man had not been my own half-brother, I'd have called him out. I have stood my ground before now. I have had a ball in my right shoulder. Sir, I'd have called him out."

"Mr Hazeldean! Mr Hazeldean! I'm shocked at you," cried the Parson; and, putting his lips close to the Squire's ear, he went on in a whisper – "What an example to your son! You'll have him fighting duels one of these days, and nobody to blame but yourself."

This warning cooled Mr Hazeldean; and, muttering, "Why the deuce did you set me off?" he fell back into his chair, and began to fan himself with his pocket-handkerchief.

The Parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the advantage he had gained. "And now, that you may have it in your power to show civility and kindness to a boy whom Mr Egerton has taken up, out of respect to his wife's memory – a kinsman, you say, of your own – and who has never offended you – a boy whose diligence in his studies proves him to be an excellent companion to your son; – Frank," (here the Parson raised his voice,) "I suppose you wanted to call on young Leslie, as you were studying the county map so attentively?"

"Why, yes," answered Frank, rather timidly, "if my father did not object to it. Leslie has been very kind to me, though he is in the sixth form, and, indeed, almost the head of the school."

"Ah," said Mrs Hazeldean, "one studious boy has a fellow-feeling for another; and though you enjoy your holidays, Frank, I am sure you read hard at school."

Mrs Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in astonishment.

Mrs Hazeldean retorted that look with great animation. "Yes, Carry," said she, tossing her head, "though you may not think Frank clever, his masters find him so. He got a prize last half. That beautiful book, Frank – hold up your head, my love – what did you get it for?"

Frank, reluctantly. – "Verses, ma'am."

Mrs Hazeldean, with triumph. – "Verses! – there, Carry, verses!"

Frank, in a hurried tone. – "Yes, but Leslie wrote them for me."

Mrs Hazeldean, recoiling. – "O Frank! a prize for what another did for you – that was mean."

Frank, ingenuously. – "You can't be more ashamed, mother, than I was when they gave me the prize."

Mrs Dale, though previously provoked at being snubbed by Harry, now showing the triumph of generosity over temper. – "I beg your pardon, Frank. Your mother must be as proud of that shame as she was of the prize."

Mrs Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank's neck, smiles beamingly on Mrs Dale, and converses with her son in a low tone about Randal Leslie. Miss Jemima now approached Carry, and said in an "aside," – "But we are forgetting poor Mr Riccabocca. Mrs Hazeldean, though the dearest creature in the world, has such a blunt way of inviting people – don't you think if you were to say a word to him, Carry?"

Mrs Dale kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her. – "Suppose you write the note yourself. Meanwhile, I shall see him, no doubt."

Parson, putting his hand on the Squire's shoulder. – "You forgive my impertinence, my kind friend. We parsons, you know, are apt to take strange liberties, when we honour and love folks, as I do you."

"Pish!" said the Squire, but his hearty smile came to his lips in spite of himself. – "You always get your own way, and I suppose Frank must ride over and see this pet of my – "

"Brother's," quoth the Parson, concluding the sentence in a tone which gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound that the Squire would not correct the Parson, as he had been about to correct himself.

Mr Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, the benignant character of his countenance changed sadly.

"The cruellest trump, Captain Higginbotham!" said he sternly, and stalked by – majestic.

The night was so fine that the Parson and his wife, as they walked home, made a little détour through the shrubbery.

Mrs Dale. – "I think I have done a good piece of work to-night."

Parson, rousing himself from a reverie. – "Have you, Carry? – it will be a very pretty handkerchief."

Mrs Dale. – "Handkerchief! – nonsense, dear. Don't you think it would be a very happy thing for both, if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be brought together?"

Parson. – "Brought together!"

Mrs Dale. – "You do snap one up so, my dear – I mean if I could make a match of it."

Parson. – "I think Riccabocca is a match already, not only for Jemima, but yourself into the bargain."

Mrs Dale, smiling loftily. – "Well, we shall see. Was not Jemima's fortune about £4000?"

Parson dreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his interrupted reverie; – "Ay – ay – I daresay."

Mrs Dale. – "And she must have saved! I dare say it is nearly £6000 by this time; – eh! Charles dear, you really are so – good gracious, what's that!"

As Mrs Dale made this exclamation, they had just emerged from the shrubbery, into the village green.

Parson. – "What's what?"

Mrs Dale pinching her husband's arm very nippingly. – "That thing – there – there."

Parson. – "Only the new stocks, Carry; I don't wonder they frighten you, for you are a very sensible woman. I only wish they would frighten the Squire."

CHAPTER XIII

Supposed to be a letter from Mrs Hazeldean to – Riccabocca, Esq., The Casino; but edited, and indeed composed, by Miss Jemima Hazeldean.

"Dear Sir, – To a feeling heart it must always be painful to give pain to another, and (though I am sure unconsciously) you have given the greatest pain to poor Mr Hazeldean and myself, indeed to all our little circle, in so cruelly refusing our attempts to become better acquainted with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do, pray, dear sir, make us the amende honorable, and give us the pleasure of your company for a few days at the Hall! May we expect you Saturday next? – our dinner hour is six o'clock.

"With the best compliments of Mr and Miss Jemima Hazeldean,

"Believe me, my dear Sir,

yours truly,

H. H.

Hazeldean Hall."

Miss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which Mrs Hazeldean had very willingly deputed her to write, took it herself into the stable-yard, in order to give the groom proper instructions to wait for an answer. But while she was speaking to the man, Frank, equipped for riding with more than his usual dandyism, came also into the yard, calling for his pony in a loud voice, and singling out the very groom whom Miss Jemima was addressing – for, indeed, he was the smartest of all in the Squire's stables – told him to saddle the grey pad, and accompany the pony.

"No, Frank," said Miss Jemima, "you can't have George; your father wants him to go on a message – you can take Mat."

"Mat, indeed!" said Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Matt was a surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always contrived to have a great patch in his boots; – besides, he called Frank "Master," and obstinately refused to trot down hill; – "Mat, indeed! – let Mat take the message, and George go with me."

But Miss Jemima had also her reasons for rejecting Mat. Mat's foible was not servility, and he always showed true English independence in all houses where he was not invited to take his ale in the servants' hall. Mat might offend Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated altercation ensued, in the midst of which the Squire and his wife entered the yard, with the intention of driving in the conjugal gig to the market town. The matter was referred to the natural umpire by both the contending parties.

The Squire looked with great contempt on his son. "And what do you want a groom at all for? Are you afraid of tumbling off the pony?"

Frank. – "No, sir; but I like to go as a gentleman, when I pay a visit to a gentleman!"

Squire, in high wrath. – "You precious puppy! I think I'm as good a gentleman as you, any day, and I should like to know when you ever saw me ride to call on a neighbour, with a fellow jingling at my heels, like that upstart Ned Spankie, whose father kept a cotton-mill. First time I ever heard of a Hazeldean thinking a livery-coat was necessary to prove his gentility!"

Mrs Hazeldean observing Frank colouring, and about to reply. – "Hush, Frank, never answer your father, – and you are going to call on Mr Leslie?"

"Yes, Ma'am, and I am very much obliged to my father for letting me," said Frank, taking the Squire's hand.

"Well, but Frank," continued Mrs Hazeldean, "I think you heard that the Leslies were very poor."

Frank. – "Eh, mother?"

Mrs Hazeldean. – "And would you run the chance of wounding the pride of a gentleman, as well born as yourself, by affecting any show of being richer than he is?"

Squire with great admiration. – "Harry, I'd give £10 to have said that!"

Frank, leaving the Squire's hand to take his mother's. – "You're quite right, mother – nothing could be more snobbish!"

Squire. – "Give us your fist too, sir; you'll be a chip of the old block, after all."

Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony.

Mrs Hazeldean to Miss Jemima. – "Is that the note you were to write for me?"

Miss Jemima. – "Yes, I supposed you did not care about seeing it, so I have sealed it, and given it to George."

Mrs Hazeldean. – "But Frank will pass close by the Casino on his way to the Leslies'. It may be more civil if he leaves the note himself."

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.