In Lorraine, at the moment of which I was talking, the men were not so used to fire as they are by this time; they were exposed, not to occasional shells like those nine which between them only wounded one horse and spoilt one helmet, but to a constant rain of them, and they were fighting a great and all-important battle, without the sense of security conveyed by an elaborate system of deep trenches and shell-proof _abris_. Also they were wearing the old _képis_ and the conspicuous dark blue coats and red trousers in which France has won or lost all her battles since the days of Napoleon. The famous new cloth of _tricolor_ blue was still on the looms of England, and steel helmets were undreamt of, or many lives that were lost in front of Nancy would have been saved. Compared with the German corps in their uniforms of invisible grey, the French soldiers were in those days at a distinct disadvantage. But neither did they care. Death had no terrors for them, and as for their wounds, there would be time enough to think about them afterwards, and then only because they fretted and fretted until they were healed so that they might go out and meet the hated Boche again. Now they had their work cut out for them. Very largely it was individual work, for in these scattered fights in the woods and village streets and the shallow concealing hollows which in many places furrow the rolling plain small bodies of infantry as well as cavalry patrols were often thrown on their own resources. Young lieutenants and sergeants and corporals and even privates constantly had to assume responsibility and think and act for themselves in sudden emergencies—a style of fighting which, when it came, was much better suited to the temper and genius of the French soldier than that of the more strictly disciplined German—and no one will ever know the number of unrecorded acts of gallantry and quick-witted coolness which helped to swell the general tide of the French success.