[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT CASIMIR-PERIER, KISSING ON THE CHEEK A RECIPIENT OF THE RIBBON OF THE ORDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR.] As in all old armies, very many of the regiments have records which date back to the last century, and of which they are very proud;--one of the cavalry regiments, the Fourth Chasseurs, celebrated in 1890 the anniversary of its creation in 1744 with an historical restoration and a military carrousel of the most picturesque character. In the immense court of their caserne in the Quartier Gramont of Saint-Germain-en-Laye there might be seen to defile a cavalcade of all the uniforms worn by the regiment, and of all the standards borne by it since the date of its organization. The tendency of modern warfare is to abolish more and more the picturesque and artistic, but the wars of the Republic and the First Empire have contributed a series of costumes among the most martial and the most imposing known to history. Something of this contrast of costume may be seen in the reproduction of M. Orange's painting from the Salon of 1891, the "Medallists of Saint Helena," on page 175,--the annual ceremony of the old soldiers of the First Empire depositing their memorial wreaths at the base of the Vendôme column; and it is with a very natural impulse that the French citizen and the French soldier of to-day turn from the bitter memories of their last war to recall the images of those great days when the nation was afire as it has never been since. The curious revival of Napoleonic literature which we have witnessed within the last few years may doubtless be ascribed in part, at least, to this longing to dispel somewhat the national depression. There is not wanting in these memoirs abundant testimony to the strange transformation which the casting off of the ancient régime wrought in the whole people. In the _Consulat et l'Empire_, M. Thiers quotes the testimony of an astonished Prussian officer after the astonishing battle of Auerstadt in which Davout with twenty-six thousand men overthrew sixty thousand of the soldiers trained in the school of the great Frederick, repulsed twenty times the charges of the cavalry considered the best in Europe, and took with his forty-four cannon one hundred and fifteen of the enemy's. "If we had to fight the French only with our fists, we would be vanquished. They are small and weakly; one of our Germans could beat four of them; but under fire they become supernatural beings. They are carried away by an inexpressible ardor, of which no trace can be seen in our own soldiers." In much more recent publications, the _Mémoires du sergent Bourgogne_, the _Souvenirs d'un officier danois_, the Lieutenant Frisenberg, there is further testimony as to the quality of this _Grande Armée_. The latter, a young soldier, records the strong impression made upon him by the French officers when he first met them, their sobriety, their moderation, wonderful in the conquerors of Europe, their easy acceptance of orders.