It was rather a fine touch of the French military authorities to set aside for the British Army the exact stretch of ground where Napoleon encamped _his_ Expeditionary Force nearly a century before. The more we know about this war, the more wonderful a man Napoleon turns out to have been. Even in this matter of choosing the best and healthiest spot for a camp, the modern commanders could not do better than follow closely in his firm footsteps. Those of us who have been to Boulogne must have driven or walked to the column which the town put up many years ago to the memory of England’s great enemy. How strange to think that British soldiers rested, before starting out on the most serious venture in their history, under the very shadow of that column! The people of Boulogne—or one ought to say what was left of them, for of course their husbands, sons, and brothers were already at the front—gave our troops a most wonderful welcome. This was, however, but a foretaste of how they were to be treated in every district of France traversed by them. As many of our soldiers wrote home, they were in some cases almost killed with kindness. Some of our troops were fortunate enough to remain at Boulogne ten days. Others only had a few hours’ rest before they were hurried up to the front. Yet others again left the camp full of high spirits, with laughter and happy _au revoirs_, to come back within a very few days wounded and on their way to hospital. As you all know, the command of the British Force was given to Field-Marshal Sir John French, and you may like me to tell you something of this great soldier. The first interesting thing about him is that, perhaps owing to the fact that his father was a naval officer, he served for a time in the Navy as a midshipman. Then he became a lieutenant in the Militia, or, as we should say now, the Territorials, and afterwards joined the 19th Hussars. He soon showed the splendid stuff he was made of, both in peace and in war. I think you will like to know that he was among those British officers who made the last desperate attempt to rescue General Gordon. He is what is called a great cavalry leader, and it has been said that what Murat was to Napoleon, French proved himself to be to Roberts and to Kitchener during the South African War. If a service of great hazard and peril had to be performed, it was always French and his men who were asked to do it. But what I want you to remember about Sir John French is, not only that he is a great soldier and a very brave man, but also that he is a singularly modest man. In each and all of his despatches during this great war he has always under-estimated his victories, in this setting an example which has not been followed by the enemy.