'As soon as I had joined Galliffet, I wrote to my wife: "Conduct of troops most orderly. It is now, of course, here, as it was already in 1870 with the Germans, that, the soldier being Guy Boys [Footnote: Guy Boys was Lady Dilke's nephew; Jim Haslett the ferryman at Dockett. Sir Charles was illustrating the fact that all classes serve together both in the ranks and as officers.] and Jim Haslett and all of us, and not a class apart, there is no 'military tone.' Discipline, nevertheless, seems perfect, but are the officers as good as the non-commissioned officers and the men? I doubt. Promotion from the ranks combined with special promotion to the highest ranks for birth of all nobles who have any brains at all is a combination which gives results inferior to either the Swiss democratic plan or the Prussian aristocratic. Perhaps a fifth of the officers are noble, but more than half the powerful officers are noble; and here we are with the sides commanded by the Prince d'Eckmühl and the Prince de Sartigues." (During the first days of the manoeuvres the four army corps and the two cavalry divisions were combined under Galliffet; half the army was commanded by General Davoust, who, of course, is the first of these two Princes; and Galliffet had for "second title" the name of his Provençal principality near Marseilles.) "You may say, 'The Generalissimo, sausage-maker, restores the balance.' But the real Generalissimo is Miribel, Aristo of the Aristos--for he is a poor noble of the South. Another of the army corps is commanded by a Breton, Kerhuel, and the other by a man of army descent for ever and ever, Négrier, son and nephew of Napoleonic Generals."' 'An amusing billet adventure was named in another letter to my wife: '"I am in a Legitimist chàteau: one side of the room, Callots; the other, Comte de Chambord. Over the bed a large crucifix. The room belongs to 'Mathilde.' But as I live with the staff I do not see the family. The butler is charming, and the fat coachman turned out two of _his_ horses to make room for 'Madame' and 'W'f'd'r.' I had to write a letter to a French newspaper, which had charged me with turning my back on the standard of a regiment instead of bowing to it, and dated from this place: 'Château de Boussencourt.'"' His observations were summed up in an article for the _Fortnightly_, which was later translated into French by an officer on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, and, after appearing in a review, was published separately by the military library. His strictures on the handling of the cavalry led to a controversy in France into which he was obliged later to enter.