r looks
and carriage something of that air which seems inherent in the seaman.
They were grave, serious, and almost stern in manner, and very unlike
the young cavalry soldiers, who, mostly recruited from the south of
France, many of them Gascons, had all the high-hearted gayety and
reckless levity of their own peculiar land. A campaign to these fellows
seemed a pleasant excursion; they made a jest of every thing, from the
wan faces of the invalids, to the black bread of the "Commissary;" they
quizzed the new "Tourleroux," as the recruits were styled, and the old
"Grumblers," as it was the fashion to call the veterans of the army;
they passed their jokes on the republic, and even their own officers
came in for a share of their ridicule. The grenadiers, however, were
those who especially were made the subject of their sarcasm. They were
generally from the north of France, and the frontier country toward
Flanders, whence they probably imbibed a portion of that phlegm and
moroseness so very unlike the general gayety of French nature; and when
assailed by such adversaries, were perfectly incapable of reply or
retaliation.

They all belonged to the army of the "Sambre et Meuse," which, although
at the beginning of the campaign highly distinguished for its successes,
had been latterly eclipsed by the extraordinary victories on the Upper
Rhine and in Western Germany; and it was curious to hear with what
intelligence and interest the greatest questions of strategy were
discussed by those who carried their packs as common soldiers in the
ranks. Movements and manoeuvres were criticised, attacked, defended,
ridiculed, and condemned, with a degree of acuteness and knowledge that
showed the enormous progress the nation had made in military science,
and with what ease the republic could recruit her officers from the
ranks of her armies.

At noon the column halted in the wood of Belleville; and while the men
were resting, an express arrived announcing that a fresh body of troops
would soon arrive, and ordering the others to delay their march till
they came up. The orderly who brought the tidings could only say that he
believed some hurried news had come from Germany, for before he left
Paris the rappel was beating in different quarters, and the rumor ran
that reinforcements were to set out for Strasbourg with the utmost
dispatch.

"And what troops are coming to join us?" said an old artillery sergeant,
in evident disbelief of the t