r brave and generous expansions.
Lessons to learn, errors to unlearn, there will surely be; tasks to
attempt, and disciplines to practise; but once place the nation in the
condition of _health_, once get it at one with its own heart, once get
it out of these aimless eddies into clear sea, out of these accursed
"doldrums," (as the sailors phrase it,) this commixture of broiling
calm and sky-bursting thunder-gust, into the great trade-winds of
natural tendency that are so near at hand,--and I can trust it to meet
all future emergency. All the freshest blood of the world is flowing
hither: we have but to wed this with the life-blood of the universe,
with eternal truth and justice, and God has in store no blessing for
noblest nations that will not be secured for ours.

* * * * *

THE CHASSEURS A PIED.

Among the most celebrated corps of the French army, one of the most
conspicuous and remarkable is that peculiar body of troops to which
has been given the name of _Chasseurs a Pied_, or _Foot-Chasseurs_,
to distinguish it from an organization of mounted men in the same
service, uniformed and trained on similar principles. The Chasseurs
a Pied have not attained the same romantic renown as that acquired
by their brethren and rivals in arms, the Zouaves, but, nevertheless,
they have had an exceedingly brilliant career in the late wars
and conquests of France. They possess their own characteristics of
originality, too, and are, in many respects, one of the most efficient
and formidable forces in existence.

In order to convey a clear and correct idea of the new principles
adopted in the organization and equipment of the Chasseurs, and to
furnish our readers with some facts that may be interesting to them
as historical students, and most useful to such among them as are
connected with or may have any aspiration for military life, we must
beg them to go back with us, for a moment, to the very period of the
invention of gunpowder. It would be out of the question, of course, to
attempt, in these pages, a description of all the curious weapons
that were at first employed under the name of fire-arms. We will only
remark that such weapons were, despite the anathemas of Bayard and
the sarcasms of Ariosto, very much used as early as the middle of the
sixteenth century, and played an important part on the battle-fields
of that epoch.

To the Spaniards belongs the credit of having rendered the use of