# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Life in a French kitchen - Part 4

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LIFE IN A FRENCH KITCHEN. By C.
(Concluded from p. 198.)
Louis Vélay is very enthusiastic about the march to London. Like all his countrymen he ignores our army altogether, with the exception of a few regiments for our colonies, and the Guards which protect the Queen and the Bank of England.
“You have no army,” he says, “you cannot bring ten thousand men into the field without leaving London undefended. So how can you gain battles on land?”
That is a settler, and I am fairly mobbed in the kitchen between Vélay and the lieutenant.
One day I ventured to suggest that we stood our ground at Waterloo, upon which the whole party in the kitchen (except Marguérite, who, dear girl, always takes the part of the oppressed, right or wrong, and who on this subject has some German tendencies), stood up, and for five minutes shouted at the top of their voices, gesticulating as if receiving words from their mouths into their hands and throwing them into my face. This was unanswerable. I shrugged my shoulders as they did when words failed them; but, next morning, when Vélay was calm, I asked him what they had said, and he informed me that it was a matter of history (French) that Wellington had actually commenced a retreat upon Brussels when Blucher came up and saved the day.
Although I would not allow my friends to ignore our army altogether, yet I could not but confess to myself that they were right to a great extent. The French army of a half a million is available to-morrow, and a conscription would give the pick of as many men as might be required to recruit it. When the Emperor declares war, he will not give us time to organise new regiments or to call out the remainder of the militia. There is no doubt but that the twenty miles of sea is as good as an army of two hundred thousand men at least; but suppose the Channel once crossed by an enemy, what have we to oppose to him?
It is asserted that we can bring into the field, on a point between London and the south coast, an army of twenty thousand men, part of which must be composed of militia. That is all.
The first thing that strikes an English officer is the slovenly manner in which French troops march and carry the firelock. Even in the streets of Paris they do not pay the music or drums the compliment of marching in step. Nothing appears to be required of them, but to keep the correct wheeling distance of the formation, and to carry the firelock on the named shoulder. An English militia regiment, after a month’s training, marches more regularly, and has a better parade use of the firelock than the French Infantry. There is an apparent want of precision in their evolutions. In the wheel of companies the men do not circle round, but make a half face outwards and shuffle up until they arrive in succession in the new direction; and in deploying into line points are not placed for each company, but it is done on a distant point. But perhaps it is better thus to practise on parade what men will have to do in action. A captain with us has to dress his men from the front of another company, which in action may have already commenced firing. Among old soldiers, as well as young, firing is rather infectious, and when once begun, with or without an order, it is very difficult to stop, and they care very little what is in front of them.
French troops are generally described as being quick in reforming when thrown into disorder—a great quality—and as seldom being more irregular in their formations in face of an enemy than on parade; whereas we exact a precision at drill, which is thrown to the winds the moment we go into action. I have heard several old officers ​remark that our army has not recovered its discipline since the war in the Crimea (discipline is lost in a campaign—virtue seems to go out of men); and also, that we have lost a great deal of precision in our movements, perhaps in imitation of our allies in the Crimea; but whether we make it up by adopting some of their good qualities remains to be proved.
They really are good soldiers, and what is more, they are great campaigners; that is, whilst our troops are on the bare ground waiting for the commissariat, a French soldier is under cover of some sort, and with a few sticks trying to cook his own dinner.
The Duke, in his despatches, makes frequent allusion to this quality in the French soldier, and also to the power of a French army to maintain itself on the ground where it stands.
Winter is not the season for drill. Though I frequently walked to the Champ de Mars for the purpose of seeing troops at exercise, I was seldom more lucky than to meet a regiment on its “promenade” or weekly march into the country, or to see a few companies of recruits at drill, or the bugles of a regiment marching and playing at the double, which they do for twenty minutes at a time.
The only occasion on which I saw a large body of troops was at the funeral of the Duc de Plaisance, but they only marched from the Madeleine to the cemetery of Père la Chaise in an open column of companies. However, I could see that the principles of their drill and ours are nearly the same. We are more precise than they are, and they attempt a greater speed than we consider compatible with steadiness.
They have three degrees of march—ordinaire, accéléré, and double. The first is the usual pace in columns of march and manœuvre in heavy marching order, and also at funerals, for they have no slow step. The cadence is quicker, but the pace is shorter than our quick step.
The pas accéléré is a quick walk used on the march and in action when speed is required. The double is nearly the same as ours, but used for greater distances, and the men are practised at it, as horses are trained for a race. The two latter steps may be useful on occasions and for short distances, but I do not believe in their extended use during a campaign.
The great object in equipping a soldier is to enable him to maintain himself on his ground. For this purpose, besides his arms, ammunition, and accoutrements, he carries food for two or more days according to the occasion, a great coat or blanket, or both, according to the season, and his knapsack, which with us constitute “heavy marching order.” Thus equipped, he is independent of the commissariat, and though he cannot run fast or far with the weight, he can hold a position, and maintain himself on his ground as long as food and ammunition last. Whereas a soldier in “light marching order,” that is with only his arms and accoutrements, cannot maintain himself for a night, for he is driven back by his wants.
It is a rule in marching, that to enable troops to arrive at the end of a long march without stragglers and in an efficient state, ready to go into action at once, they must all march with the slowest. As soon as the slow men are over-paced, they fall out, and the longer the march the more the regiment becomes inefficient. Spirit may carry on an out-paced soldier for a few days, but his heart soon fails, as does the heart of a horse, when put into harness with a quicker and an easier stepper than himself.
We can pick regiments, but we cannot pick men. Officers do not like to lose their best men, and men cannot bear the sense of inferiority implied by not being selected.
A regiment of the hardiest and most active men are but men. They cannot all be of one age and of one constitution. The strongest fall sick, and when they return from hospital and are outpaced in the first march under a hot sun, they fall out and become stragglers.
When I see, or am told by a witness who has seen, a French division march fifteen miles in a broiling sun, in heavy marching order, and then march for three miles more into action at the pas accéléré, and keep their formation to the end, and have no stragglers, I will believe in it,—“Mais il faut le voir pour le croire.” I saw a battalion of Chasseurs de Vincennes, supposed to be the best of the French infantry, marching for some immediate purpose along the Boulevards at the pas accéléré. They came from the barracks at the Château d’Eau, and were then near the Rue de la Paix, a distance of about two miles, and a great many of the men were out-paced, and some of them already in distress.
Luckily for the respectability of the British army (which is all we are allowed by our allies to have gained in the Crimea), there is such a thing as the pas accéléré, for, according to French history, we were in a bad position at Inkermann, and as usual had already commenced a retreat, when the day was saved by a French division, which had marched a distance of six miles, from Kamiesh Bay, at this useful pace. But as the French claim the merit of every victory in the Crimea, and lay the blame on us when anything went wrong, their accounts differ not a little from ours, or even general history.
The French army bears another and a great contrast to ours. Their officers are soldiers by profession, and ours too frequently enter the service for amusement and temporary occupation. Many of the former have risen from the ranks, and there are but a few who have any means besides their pay; their hopes in this world are in promotion and glory; when they lose their pay as officers, they become waiters at hotels and cab-drivers. Whereas our officers have generally some private means, and either can or do purchase some, if not all, of their commissions. With their private fortunes, and the value of their commissions to fall back upon, they will not face a disappointment in promotion, or a bad climate, or even a disagreeable quarter. On the breaking out of hostilities, the first impulse of every officer is to rush to the seat of war; the second is to rush back again. After a few weeks of the stern business of real war, and there is nothing so matter-of-fact, and on the spot has so little romance as war, ​our amateur officers cannot be kept at their posts. See the Duke’s despatches, passim. When they cannot return home on duty, or on sick leave, or on private urgent affairs, they do not hesitate even to resign their commissions.
Hence the short service and want of experience of our officers, particularly in the cavalry. At the end of the Crimean war, several of the captains and the whole of the subalterns of some of the Crimean regiments had two years’ service, and the casualties by death and sickness did not warrant such promotion and so much inexperience.
The French have a fine force of cavalry, there being at Versailles as many as seven thousand horses, which are of a wiry, serviceable description. Great pains have been taken to improve the breed of horses for army purposes. The men look well, and are counted efficient, but for some reason or other, the cavalry is not held in the same estimation as the other branches of the service.
A Frenchman is a poor horseman; he is not made for sitting on a horse; he has no hands, his whole weight is on the curb, and altogether he never seems at home on horseback. They have no school in France for horsemanship, like our hunting-field; and a light hand, and an easy seat are things unknown. As long as a Frenchman does not tumble off, it is a matter of indifference, whether his hands are near his horse’s ears or his own. The last thing he thinks of is a ride into the country for the pleasure of the exercise, and he no more would keep a horse for that purpose, than an Englishman would a camel for his dog-cart. When he does keep a horse, it is for the Bois de Boulogne. There he sees the world, and what is more, the world sees him, his rose-coloured gloves, his gold-mounted whip, and his prancing barb; a wretched animal with weak hams, that comes from Algiers, but quite the fashion just now, having a long mane and tail. There he sits in his tight clothes, strapped down to his boots (straps in the second half of the nineteenth century!) and then comes an English gentleman, loosely dressed, and cantering along, at ease with himself and his horse. However we have a deal to learn from each other; and much as we excel as masters of a horse, we cannot compare with them as horse masters. They can give us lessons in general stable management, in their shoeing, in their veterinary art, and in kindness to their horses, and to the rest of the dumb creation. This is proved by the general condition of their horses, and by the fact that though most of their draught horses are entire, a vicious animal is seldom seen. Their coats seldom stare, though the climate is as variable, and in winter much more rigorous than that of England; and during the time I was in Paris, I never saw a painfully lame horse, even in a hack carriage, or one with a sore back. A French coachman and his horses are the best of friends—they know him well, and they are never so brutally treated as in countries which have a Martin’s act.
But our neighbours are very kind to all the dumb creation. Even the little birds, such as sparrows and linnets, are protected by law under the plea of their being supposed to destroy the caterpillars, grubs, and insects in the fields. The sparrows in the Tuileries gardens are quite tame; and so are the wood-pigeons, which with us are as wild as hawks. A man may be seen feeding them with bread. The sparrows light on his hand, and he throws them into the air with a piece of bread, which they catch in their beaks as it falls.
But I am running away from the French army. Not that I am afraid of it. Our men can do their duty as of old; and our officers, being better educated and drinking less, are probably not much inferior to, or less clear in the head than Wellington and his lieutenants. But if we are allowed to do so, we ought to rest contented under the stock of our old laurels. The fortune of war is a curious element in the chances of a campaign, and as we have everything to lose by a war, I would rather have any other nation for an enemy than the French.
The eyes of Madame Blot are red; she eats less dinner than ever. When Blot goes out at nine o’clock, she tells me that Alfred has passed his examination at last, and has been promoted to a regiment stationed at Lyons. While she is yet speaking Marguérite enters. Her heart also is full, and I go out to let them unbosom. After waiting twenty minutes at the corner, I meet Marguérite going home. It is a beautiful night, and we walk along the Boulevards, which are full of people. Something has happened. The shop has never been a good business, there is a difficulty about the rent, and she and her mother are going back to Strasbourg. I could have assisted them with a little, but only a little, and I am therefore greatly relieved by her saying the difficulty is eleven hundred francs—a sum far beyond me—and that it falls upon a rich old uncle at Strasbourg, who is caution, or security, for them.
She is sorry to go, and I believe her: I am sorry to lose her, and of course she believes me. I gave her a small gold compass—not the one you gave me, Oh, Laura! to keep my heart straight, for that shall be found between me and my flannel when the winds have ceased to blow, but one that cost me four francs and a-half then and there. We are at the shop-door. Marguérite and I began by being lovers, but we elevated the sentiment and became the best of friends, and, for six weeks, the most regular of correspondents. I gave her a kiss, and never saw her again.
I could no more have stayed in Paris after the party in the kitchen had broken up, than I could have slept in a church after being at a wedding. So, next morning, I packed up my things, and having, as in duty bound, saluted Madame on both sides of the cheek and paid my bill, I called a voiture, and that night I was in Dieppe.
Sterne tells a story in his Sentimental Journey of a respectable-looking French beggar, who whispered something into the ear of every lady that passed him in the street, and every one turned round and gave him something. Sterne found that he had paid each woman a compliment.
I never believed this story. At Dieppe I had in French money the sum of seventy-five francs ​and three sous. Not wishing to take francs to England, I entered an exchange shop on the quay. There was an old woman at the counter—a hard-looking, money-scraping woman. The exchange, she said, was twenty-five francs and four sous for each sovereign—nothing less—not a centime less. At this rate I could only purchase two sovereigns, and still be saddled with twenty-four francs. I explained the exact state of the funds—she was obdurate; I expended my best French in arguments—she was inflexible. The packet bell was ringing—I was leaving the shop. There were some violets in the window, white and blue. I thought of Sterne’s story. “Would Madame give me two or three of those lovely violets as a souvenir of the most beautiful country in the world?” It was magic. She handed me the whole bunch and three sovereigns, and I now believe the story of Sterne’s respectable beggar.