d soldier; and the captain of the cavalry, Colosso. The two
former (Frenchmen) saw almost the whole of the war. Taken prisoners by
the Egyptians, they refused to enter their service, and were sent back.
As for Colosso, he sojourned but a short time in the camp; for, on his
endeavouring to put a stop to the frightful abuses that pervaded every
branch of the service, the generals and colonels formed a league against
him, and he retired in disgust.

On the 14th of May the field-marshal arrived at Koniah, where he
displayed the most culpable negligence and carelessness. It was in
vain that the European inspectors requested him to put in force 'the
regulation for troops in the field,' of the French general Prevan, which
had been translated into Turkish; they were no more listened to than
were their complaints on the bad state of the camp, and on the indolence
and negligence of the chiefs.

The generalissimo never even deemed it once requisite to review his
army. The most frightful disorder prevailed in the Turkish military
administrations, which subsequently led to all their reverses; in fact,
it was evident to every experienced eye that an army so constituted,
once overtaken by defeat, would soon be totally disorganised, and that
the Porte ought to place no reliance upon its army. But there was an
arm which, in the flourishing times of Islamism, was worth 100,000
Janizaries. This was excommunication. The Sultan at last resolved to
unsheathe this weapon. The fatal fetva was launched against the traitor
Mehemet Ali, and his son, the indolent Ibrahim. Those who have studied
the Turkish history must have thought that the Viceroy of Egypt would
find at last his master--the executioner; but since the late victories
of the Russians, all national faith is extinguished among the Osmanlis.
Excommunication is an arm as worn out at Constantinople as at Rome.

Whilst the Porte was fulminating her bull of excommunication, she
directed a note to the corps diplomatique at Constantinople, in which
she explained the quarrel with her subjects, and in which she demanded
the strictest neutrality on the part of the great powers, and declared
Egypt in a state of blockade. The Emperor Nicholas recalled his consul
from Alexandria, and even made an offer of a fleet, and an auxiliary
corps d'armee. Austria, an enemy to all revolutions, went so far as
to threaten the Viceroy. England appeared to preserve the strictest
neutrality, while France strenu