I must not speak of the Grand and Little Trianon, the trim walks, or the fountain which I beheld playing into the basin of Neptune. It was all new and delightful to a raw youth, whose reading of French history had been neither extensive nor profound. Mackellar and I took a drive through the Park, out of Versailles, and enjoyed a distant view of Paris from certain heights whence now and then we could hear the booming of cannon as the forts discharged their thunder. On our homeward journey we met the old King driving in an open landau. He was accompanied by the German Chancellor. When I saw him another time, General von Moltke was in the carriage. Thus I had now set eyes on the man at Sedan who had lost one Empire, and on those who were destined, in the halls of Louis XIV., to set up another ere six months should have passed. But, indeed, it would seem that half the inhabitants of Versailles consisted of Princes, Dukes, Barons, and commanding officers. I counted nine of these notables at the Hôtel des Réservoirs; yet some were such shabby-looking specimens of their class, that for the time they extinguished in me the respect which I had supposed myself to entertain for Royalty and its surroundings. A Prince, a Duke, or a General who walked about the streets munching alternately a piece of raw ham or sausage from one hand, and a junk of bread from the other, was not exactly one's idea of feudal, or even German dignity, and modern civilisation. Yet such were the manners of not a few whose high-sounding names read well in the "Gazette". I have been offered a share of these rude repasts, and, famished as I might be at the time, my self-respect, nay, my very appetite, revolted; and it was not without an effort that I was able politely to decline. The proverb runs, "A la guerre comme à la guerre". I do not mean to imply that in a campaign the decencies of life can be always observed; but there is such a thing as a gentlemanly bearing, and, out of that great assembly which boasted of the oldest German blood in its members, I saw few that came up to the standard which English officers are expected to fulfil, as they do with the rarest exception. I must confess that, when I looked at several of our _attachés_ in the German Court, and contrasted them with their perhaps more intellectual, and certainly more uncouth and burly, cousins from across the Rhine, and from the Mark of Brandenburg, I could not help feeling proud of that sister country which gave them birth. But, alas! when we compare, not the officers and men individually, but the English army with the German, we can no longer boast: our methods of training, until lately, have been old-fashioned; our military science lags behind; and our neglect of the training, to which all young men in town and village might, with the greatest advantage, be submitted, is, I venture to think, no less shortsighted than imbecile.