In glancing through the collection of M. de la Roncière, Keeper of the Printed Books at the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, one is particularly impressed by the spirit of fraternity that pervades the trench newspaper, evidence of the thoroughly democratic army of France. No journal prides itself as being the organ of a "crack" regiment. There are, in fact, no _corps d’élite_—corps that are specially recruited. In the Republican model army each regiment is placed on a footing of equality, and the tendency in all records of achievements is to keep a strict balance and to give no more glory to one unit than another. None the less, certain regiments have perforce distinguished themselves in spite of this arrangement. They have distinguished themselves because they have been in the forefront of the fighting, because they have borne the brunt of dangerous enterprises, because they have persisted in keeping alive the old traditions of the corps, traditions which arose from the fact that the men forming it came from a certain district renowned for its hardy types, and capable of an endless energy of resistance. Such a regiment is the "Chasseurs à Pied," the most famous corps of the Home Army, and popularly known as the "Chasseurs Alpins." For although the Chasseurs were used all along the eastern frontier from Belfort to Lunéville, the popular mind constantly associates them with the mountains—the little thick-set men in dark blue tunics and blue Tam-o’-Shanters, skimming over the snow upon skis. These are men of the Alps and the Vosges, sturdy of limb and sound of wind, real mountaineers, courageous, resourceful and capable of endless fatigue. No unit of the French Army has suffered as much as they in proportion to their numbers. They have been everywhere where the fighting was most severe, and at Verdun they took a foremost part in resisting the colossal attack of the Germans. Although there was a Chasseur regiment under the Empire, dressed very much as were the Grenadiers, with a high fur bonnet, in their present form the corps is of comparatively recent date, and has existed only three-quarters of a century; the regimental records, however, hold some well-known names. President Poincaré performed his military service in this famous corps, Bar-le-Duc being his recruiting centre, and among its officers were both Canrobert and MacMahon, the one commanding the fifth and the other the eighth battalion. The Great War effected changes in the traditional uniform of the Chasseurs. Though they kept their dark clothes out of pride of family whilst the rest of the army—except the Moroccans, who were in khaki—adopted the horizon blue, the famous blue _béret_ (Tam-o’-Shanter) embroidered with a golden bugle was sacrificed for the steel helmet, at least for service in the trenches—that valuable head-gear which has saved probably fifty per cent. of head wounds.