The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1899-03-01
THE OLD UNIFORM
BY Francis Coppee.

nNE of my desk-mates in the office al
J the ministry of war was an ex-non'
commissioned officer, Henri Vidal. He
had lost his left arm in the Italian cam
paign, but with his remaining hand he
executed marvels of aligraphy-down
to drawing with one pen-stroke'a bird
in the flourish of his signature.
A good fellow, Vidal; the type of the
upright old soldier, hardly 40, with a
sprinkling of gray in his blonde i'm
perial-he had been in the Zouaves. We
all called him Pere Vidal, more respect
fully than Familiarity, for we all knew
his life of honor and devotion. He lived
in cheap little lodging at Grenelle,
wherein the money of his cross, his
pension, and his salary-he managed to
support his widowed sister and her
three children. Three thousand francs
for five people! No matter, his
redingote, the empty left sleeve caught
to the third button, was always brushed
as if for parade; and so seriously did he
take his red ribbon, invariably fresh
that he took it out of his buttonhole
whenever he carried pair of boots or
trousers or went on any commonplace
errand.
AS at that time I, too, was living in
the southern suburb of Paris, 1 often
walked home with Pere Vidal, and
used to make him tell of his campaigns
as we passed near the military school,
meeting at every step-it was at the
close of the empire-the splendid uni
forms of the imperial guard, green
chasseurs, white lancers, and the dark
and magnificent artillery officers, black
and gold, costume worth while get
ting killed in. Sometimes, on hot
evenings, treated my companion to
absinthe; out of economy he never
drank. On these occasions the ex-sol-
der, who had become a sober pater-
familias, and had lost the habit of the
parrot, would rise from the table with
a touch of heroic drunkenness in his
brain, and the rest of the way was al
most certain to hear some tale of war.
One evening - believe that Pere
Vidal had had two glasses of absinthe-
as we walked along the hideous Boule-
yard de Grenelle, he stopped suddenly
before a military old-clothes shop
there are many like it in that quarter
a dirty, sinister den, showing in its
window rusted pistols, bowls full of
buttons, and furnished epaulets; in
front were hung, amid sordid rags, a
few old officers uniforms, rain-rotted
and sunburned; with the slope-in at the
waist and the padded shoulders, they
had an almost human aspect.
Vidal, selling my arm with his right
hand and turning his slightly tipsy
gaze on me, raised his stump to point
out one of the uniforms, an African of
ficer's tunic, with the killed skirt and
the three gold braids making figure
eight on the sleeve.
Look" he said; "that's the uniform
of my old corps, a captains tunic."
Drawing nearer, he made out the
number engraved on the buttons, and
went on with enthusiasm:
''My regiment! The First Zouaves!'
Suddenly his hand shook, his face
darkened; dropping his eyes, he MUIR
INJURED, in horror-stricken voice:
mon Dieu, what if it were his!'
Then brusquely turning the coat
about. he showed me in the middle OF
the back little round hole, borderel
by black rim-blood, of course--it
made one shudder, like the sight of {
wound.
"A nasty scar" I said to Pere Vidal
who had dropped the garment and was
fastening away. And foreseeing q
tale, added, to spur him on: at is
not usually in the back that bullets
strike captains of the zouaves."
He apparently did not hear me; he
1numbled to himself: ''How could i
get there? It's a long way from the
battlefield of Melegnano to the boule
ward Of Grenelle! Oh, yes, know
the carrion crows, that follow the army
the shippers of the dead! But why
Just there, two steps from the mill
tary school where the other fellows
regiment is stationed? He must have
passed; he must have recognized it
What a ghost!"
"See here, Pere Vidal said /, violent
" interested, stop your muttering, ant