then throwing down the paper on the table, he
cried out--

'So much for Kilmaine's contingent. I asked for a company of
engineers and a squadron of "Guides," and they send me a boy from
the cavalry-school of Saumur. I tell them that I want some fellows
conversant with the language and the people, able to treat with the
peasantry, and acquainted with their habits, and here I have got a raw
youth whose highest acquirement in all likelihood is to daub a map with
water-colours, or take fortifications with a pair of compasses! I wish
I had some of these learned gentlemen in the trenches for a few hours.
_Parbleu!_ I think I could teach them something they don't learn from
Citizen Carnot.--Well, sir,' said he, turning abruptly towards me, 'how
many squadrons of the "Guides" are completed?'

'I cannot tell, general,' was my timid answer.

'Where are they stationed?'

'Of that also I am ignorant, sir.'

'_Peste!_' cried he, stamping his foot passionately; then suddenly
checking his anger, he asked, 'How many are coming to join this
expedition? Is there a regiment, a division, a troop? Can you tell me
with certainty that a sergeant's guard is on the way hither?'

'I cannot, sir; I know nothing whatever about the regiment in question.'

'You have never seen it?' cried he vehemently.

'Never, sir.'

'This exceeds all belief,' exclaimed he, with a crash of his closed fist
upon the table. 'Three weeks letter-writing! Estafettes, orderlies, and
special couriers to no end! And here we have an unfledged cur from a
cavalry institute, when I asked for a strong reinforcement. Then what
brought you here, boy?'

'To join your expedition, general.'

'Have they told you it was a holiday-party that we had planned? Did they
say it was a junketing we were bent upon?'

'If they had, sir, I would not have come.'

'The greater fool you, then, that's all,' cried he, laughing; 'when I
was your age I'd not have hesitated twice between a merry-making and a
bayonet charge.'

While he was thus speaking, he never ceased to sign his name to every
paper placed before him by one or other of the secretaries.

'No, _parbleu!_ he went on, '_La maitresse_ before the _mitraille_ any
day for me. But what's all this, Girard? Here I'm issuing orders
upon the national treasury for hundreds of thousands without let or
compunction.'

The aide-de-camp whispered a word or two in a low tone.

'I know it, lad; I know it well,' said the general, laughi