One of the feats of the Foreign Legion was the taking of Son-Tay on December 16th, 1883, a square brick _citadelle_ protected by a hundred cannon, a moat five yards wide, and hedges of bamboo, and defended by twenty-five thousand men--ten thousand Chinese regulars, ten thousand Black Flags, and five thousand Annamites. As an example of pure bravery, look at the thirty-six days' siege of Tuyen-Quan, which in 1885 was held by six hundred legionaries against twenty thousand Chinese. Few celebrated sieges have attained and none surpassed in horror what took place there. On the occasion of the Camerone affair, in Mexico, sixty-five legionaries, without food or shelter, in an open court and under a tropical sun, held in check for more than ten hours two thousand enemies, three hundred of whom they killed. The word "Camerone" is embroidered on the flag of the Foreign Legion, and if you go to the Invalides you will see on one of the walls, in letters of gold, the names of the three officers who directed that handful of heroes, with the date of the fight: "Lieutenant Vilain, Sub-Lieutenant Mandet, and Captain Danjou; April 30th, 1863." VI--FRANCE'S TRIBUTE TO THE LEGION The bravery of the Foreign Legion has been so conspicuous that on February 16th, 1906, M. Eugène Etienne, then Minister of War, proposed that the flag of the 1st Foreign Regiment be decorated with the Legion of Honour, "in recognition of the acts of devotion, courage, and abnegation which a troop, ever on a war footing, renders to the country in the defence of its Colonial possessions." This was done, and at the Invalides, in a special case, can be seen an old flag of the regiment bearing the date September 24th, 1862, a flag which had been retaken from the enemy, and on the staff of which hangs the Cross of the Legion of Honour, the finest tribute which France can pay to the glorious deeds of the Foreign Legion. During the present war a further distinction has been granted the marching regiment of the Legion. Authority has just been given the men to wear the _fourragère_, or braid, over the left shoulder. The flag of this regiment had already been decorated with the Croix de Guerre. The latest recorded exploit of this gallant corps was the capture, at the point of the bayonet, of a fortified village strongly held by the enemy. The men of the Legion held out so vigorously that all the enemy's counter-attacks were beaten off, and seven hundred and fifty German prisoners were sent to the rear. The British residents in Paris and other parts of France who volunteered for service in the French army and trained at the Magic City in 1914 were drafted into the Foreign Legion, and the survivors have reason to be proud of their old corps.