little of the swagger that marked the corps d'élite. Indeed, all their best men had been taken to fill the ranks of these muchfavoured units, and the undersized pousse-caillour were little considered. When the day of trial came, however, some years later, the Linesmen showed as dauntless a spirit and died in their ranks as gamely as did the brilliant Guard.

Of course the small party of English officers had arrived with their minds full of details on which they wanted to gather information, and as a humble subaltern I had been expected to fraternise with the lower ranks and hear their opinions, while a General and two Colonels tried to suck the brains of the great Marshal himself and his senior Staff officers. The first opportunity of confidential communication came after déjeuner, to which we had been invited at the Headquarters pavilion. It had been expected that the Marshal would talk in English, which he knew very fairly well, but for some reason he would not do so. Our General and one Colonel could not understand a word of French, and the other Colonel was monopolised by Madame la Maréchale, who insisted on maintaining an animated conversation with him. To me, then, there fell the unlooked-for privilege of nearly an hour's tête-à-tête with one of the most important military authorities of the day as he walked up and down, smoking his after-breakfast cigars. He was all kindness and affability, and gave his opinion on all kinds of subjects with the utmost freedom. I remember that, even then, though I did not realise how weighty was the information, he criticised the French system of mobilisation. How true were his words was proved by the disastrous confusion in 1870. He was essentially an infantry general, and placed no great value on cavalry, especially the cuirassiers, which he considered out of date after the improvement in small arms and artillery. He was convinced that the most valuable quality of very heavy horsemen was their imposing appearance and the rattling thunder (what he called the plon-plon, plon-plon) of their advance. My conversation with Marshal Mac-Mahon furnished, as I have reason to know, at least half of the official report on our mission that went to the Horse Guards.

While I am thinking of visits to foreign armies, I may recall my experiences in Berlin in 1869. On arrival, I with my seniors left cards on all the most important personages in the Prussian army. In due course we had the utmost kindness shown to us, and the first entertainment to which we were bidden was a small dinner given by the King, of not more than twenty-five or thirty

covers. I have never enjoyed an evening more heartily. The monarch was extremely gracious and said a kindly word to each of his guests. The dinner was worthy of the host, and there was a special brand of Rhine wine which was super-excellent. Strauss's band, led by himself, was in attendance and played the 'Schönen blauen Donau' for the first time. A very attractive maid of honour on the other side of the table was delightful to watch, and I sat between two Counts Brandenburg, twins, and so much alike that they could not be known apart, who by blood, if not legally, were closely connected with the Royal house. They were both generals of cavalry-stout, bald, elderly men; and, to me at least, showed themselves as essentially jovial, amusing, and genial bonsvivants. It was not to be expected that the privilege of meeting them again should fall to my lot, but I heard of one of them the following year. When General Bredow was about to start on his famous death ride at Mars-le-Tour, that magnificent charge of six or seven squadrons which at a critical moment checked a whole French army, one of the Counts Brandenburg galloped up to him to join as a volunteer in the daring feat of arms, crying out, 'Vorwärts, Bredow. Ich gehe auch mit.' He could not bear to remain in the rear in the King's cortège when he saw an opportunity of showing the brave spirit of his family, and he rode gloriously with the foremost files.

But, alas! delightful as was my evening in such exalted company, I afterwards discovered that I had been invited quite by mistake. Our military attaché, who had been absent from Berlin, returned on the following day, and when I told him of the King's dinner party, he said, 'How the deuce came you to be there? No one under the rank of a field officer is ever invited to the small dinners.' On inquiry it was found that as, being attached to a general, I had 'A.D.C.' on my cards, it was supposed that I must be an A.D.C. to the Queen (necessarily a full colonel), and I had come in for the attention only paid to that superior rank. Certainly the mistake was a lucky one for me, and I could only trust that I had sustained my fictitious character with sufficient propriety.

For three successive days the English visitors attended the manœuvres of the Guard Corps near Berlin, and saturated themselves with ideas which had originally sprung from the brains of Von Moltke and Von Roon. The sight that perhaps has dwelt more distinctly in my memory than any other was the march past of the Grenadiers, with the small son of the Crown Prince

(now the Kaiser) at the head of the leading company, and much put to it to keep the pace and step of the tall Pomeranians. I do not know whether he, as Kaiser, still maintains the picturesque custom of his grandfather, inside whose palace the guards and sentries all were equipped in the uniform of Frederick the Great's time. The only mark of the nineteenth century was that they carried the needle-gun instead of the old musket with the famous iron ramrod, which was so effective during the Seven Years' War.

I have said that I was an A.D.C. to a general officer when I visited Berlin, and an A.D.C. I remained for a few years. Now, there are two kinds of A.D.C.s. There is the domestic variety, which finds itself as much at the beck and call of the General's wife and daughters for social purposes as it is employed by the General himself on purely military business. I have heard it whispered that the prospects of a young officer in the Service may be as much benefited by zeal and efficiency in performing the duties of a domestic A.D.C. as by showing intelligence and energy in the tented field. Generals whose personal reputation as soldiers is on the highest level, and whose good word is all-powerful, may be very much under home influence, and may be pushed to see special qualifications for military advancement in the cherished 'tame cats' of their drawing-rooms. Cherchez la femme may probably still be said in looking for the beginnings of some successful careers in the British Army. Except on active service, when an A.D.C. is necessarily the organising spirit of his General's head. quarters, I am thankful to say that my experience of the duties of personal Staff was strictly confined to work in the field and at the desk, and in it I always found very full and interesting employ. ment. I may here mention a domestic problem that once presented itself to me while serving on a distant expedition. A message arrived that a kind naval officer had presented a turtle to my General, and I was told that it had been landed and was lying on the beach. The household at my disposition consisted of a European orderly, a black man who most unjustifiably called himself a cook and two nondescript coloured boys, our personal attendants. Accompanied by these I went to the beach, and there, gasping on the shingle, I found an enormous monster over six feet long, lying helpless on its mighty carapace, and seemingly impervious to anything less shattering than dynamite. There was the material for gallons of soup and yards of steaks, but how was it to be utilised? The orderly had never seen one of them beasts before,'

and the cook, equally ignorant, had no suggestion to make. I ask the question of any highly cultivated modern Staff officer, What should have been done? Frankly, I gave it up, and I believe that, after long toil with a hatchet, the poor brute's head was cut off, and some of its body was removed for the pot. I draw a veil over the memory of the dish that afterwards appeared at our table. It certainly had no resemblance to either turtle soup or turtle steaks.

The annual inspections of regiments in old times were very amusing in themselves, and brought the General's A.D.C. in contact with numberless good fellows in every rank of the Service, all of whom were pleasant acquaintances, and some became intimate and dear friends. To think only of the rank-and-file. In afteryears, men who had been soldiers turned up in many different places and showed their kindly memories by the most friendly attentions. A gold-laced porter at a restaurant would depart from his dignity and rush to give his personal service. A butler at a country house would by no means allow the officer whom he recognised to be valeted by the first or second footman, but himself attended to the visitor on the chance of a word or two about the time when the old -th lay at Hounslow. The police force was full of old soldiers, who would stop the traffic in a crowded street for the passage of an old friend. I remember, too, being once the victim of an assault at Epsom and grappling with my assailant. I yelled 'Police!' and a mounted constable quickly came to my assistance, followed by a couple of plain-clothes men. After I had charged my man at the office in the Grand Stand, and the case was arranged for the next Petty Sessions, my police allies all introduced themselves as men who knew me well while they were serving in various corps, and expressed their delight in being at hand' when there were a lot of rough customers about who were looking nasty.'

The idiosyncrasies of inspecting generals were always of much interest, and, previous to an inspection, even the most swagger colonels often condescended to pump the A.D.C. as to the points to which the General was likely to pay particular attention. As I have told, General Lawrenson looked for equitation, another General would absolutely revel in checking the books and records in the regimental office, a third was an expert in saddlery, while a fourth would not admit that a corps was in proper order unless the barrack rooms were scoured, polished, and whitewashed like dairies. Even what were called the 'inspection lunches' were often care

fully considered, so that the General might perchance be mollified by the entertainment that was offered to him. A story was told of the Duke of Cambridge when he was making a certain tour of inspection. On the table of the first corps that he visited was a dish of homely pork chops, of which H.R.H. partook with approval. The tip was sent on that pork chops were food such as the Commander-in-Chief loved. At his next inspection lunch, therefore, pork chops were duly provided, and again they were appreciated. But when, for the third or fourth time, pork chops appeared as the leading feature of a military menu, it is said that the remark burst forth, Good God! am I never to see anything but pork chops?'

Cavalry was always one of the
Then, as always before and since,

An inspection of Household pleasantest duties of the year. the Life Guards and Blues were in tenue, in conduct, in drill, and in all interior economy second to none and equalled by very few of the English cavalry regiments. There was little chance, therefore, of any fault-finding to mar the serenity of temper on all sides. Generally also some people of light and leading made a point of taking the opportunity to look at a corps in which they had possibly served themselves or had some relations serving, so the inspection became a small social function. How magnificent was a charge of these corsleted men-at-arms! The horsemanship and rapid accuracy of movement that they showed were of the highest order, and certainly could not then be equalled by any Continental cavalry. I am reminded of this particularly, because I attended some French cavalry manœuvres immediately after being present at a Life Guards' inspection. The great feature of the last day of the French manoeuvres was to be a grand charge of Cuirassiers, and it was eagerly awaited. When it came, however, I at least was terribly disappointed. Good as their horses were, theGros Frères' never allowed them to be extended beyond a common canter, and, even so, the plain was strewn with men who had lost their saddles. The French Staff were, however, apparently perfectly satisfied with the performance, and one of them said to me with pride, Maintenant, Monsieur, vous pouvez dire que vous avez vu une charge de Cuirassiers.'

I don't know whether it is true that modern generals have not the same prestige as their predecessors in my young days, when they were very awe-inspiring personages before whom everybody quailed. A story was current in my old regiment about Lord