“Considering the fact that we began with practically raw material (though, of course, many of the men had seen previous service), and that there were no _cadres_ to build upon, I think our work with the _Legion Italienne_ was about a record for quick training. It was October before we were well started, and by the end of December we were not only on the first line, but had already gone through some of the bloodiest fighting the war has seen. My grandfather used to say that proper military training was nine-tenths a matter of applied common sense and one-tenth a matter of drill. Well, I employed what common sense and experience I had, and made up the rest with drill. Inside of two months we had 4,000 men at the front, where the French Higher Command was so well impressed with their quality that it was but a week or two before they were deemed worthy of the place of honour in an attack upon the Prussian Guard, which had been pressing steadily forward in the hope of cutting the communications between Chalons and Verdun. No regiment ever had a warmer baptism of fire. We drove back the Guard two and a half kilometres, but lost a thousand men in the effort. “I don’t recall anything that was actually said between us on the subject, but it seemed to be generally understood among us brothers that the shedding of some Garibaldi blood--or, better still, the sacrifice of a Garibaldi life--would be calculated to throw a great, perhaps a decisive, weight into the wavering balance in Italy, where a growing sympathy for the cause of the Allies only needed a touch to quicken it to action. Indeed, I am under the impression that my father said something to that effect to the two younger boys before he sent them on to France. At any rate, all three of the youngsters behaved exactly as though their only object in life was to get in the way of German bullets. Well--Bruno got _his_ in the last week in December, ten or twelve days ahead of Costante, who fell on January 5. Ezia--the youngest of the three fire-eaters--though, through no fault of his own, had to wait and take his bullet from the Austrians on our own front. (It occurred not far from here, by the way.) “The attack in which Bruno fell was one of the finest things I have ever seen. General Gouraud sent for me in person to explain why a certain system of trenches, which we were ordered to attack, _must_ be taken and held, no matter what the price. We mustered for mass at midnight--it was Christmas, or the day after, I believe--and the memory of that icicle-framed altar in the ruined, roofless church, with the flickering candles throwing just light enough to silhouette the tall form of Gouraud, who stood in front of me, will never fade from my mind.