‘So much for Kilmaine’s contingent. I asked for a company of engineers and a squadron of “Guides,” and they send me a boy from the cavalry-school of Saumur. I tell them that I want some fellows conversant with the language and the people, able to treat with the peasantry, and acquainted with their habits, and here I have got a raw youth whose highest acquirement in all likelihood is to daub a map with water-colours, or take fortifications with a pair of compasses! I wish I had some of these learned gentlemen in the trenches for a few hours. _Parbleu!_ I think I could teach them something they don’t learn from Citizen Carnot.--Well, sir,’ said he, turning abruptly towards me, ‘how many squadrons of the “Guides” are completed?’ ‘I cannot tell, general,’ was my timid answer. ‘Where are they stationed?’ ‘Of that also I am ignorant, sir.’ ‘_Peste!_’ cried he, stamping his foot passionately; then suddenly checking his anger, he asked, ‘How many are coming to join this expedition? Is there a regiment, a division, a troop? Can you tell me with certainty that a sergeant’s guard is on the way hither?’ ‘I cannot, sir; I know nothing whatever about the regiment in question.’ ‘You have never seen it?’ cried he vehemently. ‘Never, sir.’ ‘This exceeds all belief,’ exclaimed he, with a crash of his closed fist upon the table. ‘Three weeks letter-writing! Estafettes, orderlies, and special couriers to no end! And here we have an unfledged cur from a cavalry institute, when I asked for a strong reinforcement. Then what brought you here, boy?’ ‘To join your expedition, general.’ ‘Have they told you it was a holiday-party that we had planned? Did they say it was a junketing we were bent upon?’ ‘If they had, sir, I would not have come.’ ‘The greater fool you, then, that’s all,’ cried he, laughing; ‘when I was your age I’d not have hesitated twice between a merry-making and a bayonet charge.’ While he was thus speaking, he never ceased to sign his name to every paper placed before him by one or other of the secretaries. ‘No, _parbleu!_ he went on, ‘_La maîtresse_ before the _mitraille_ any day for me. But what’s all this, Girard? Here I’m issuing orders upon the national treasury for hundreds of thousands without let or compunction.’ The aide-de-camp whispered a word or two in a low tone. ‘I know it, lad; I know it well,’ said the general, laughing heartily; ‘I only pray that all our requisitions may be as easily obtained in future.--Well, Monsieur le Guide, what are we to do with you?’ ‘Not refuse me, I hope, general,’ said I diffidently. ‘Not refuse you, certainly; but in what capacity to take you, lad, that’s the question. If you had served--if you had even walked a campaign----’ ‘So I have, general--this will show you where I have been’; and I handed him the _livret_ which every soldier carries of his conduct and career. He took the book, and casting his eyes hastily over it, exclaimed--