battalions was retained, and the one formed two years before at Vincennes was designated as the First Battalion, and recalled from Africa to St. Omer as a model for the other nine that were to be organized. St. Omer offered extensive barracks, a vast field suitable to military exercise, and, in fine, all the establishments requisite for a large concourse of troops. The ranks were soon filled with picked men from all sides, and ardent, ambitious officers from every corps of the army sought commands. Among the latter we may mention a certain Captain, since Marshal de M'Mahon, who was put at the head of the Tenth Battalion.

Under the eyes of the Prince Royal, and in accordance with a series of regulations drawn up by him with the greatest care, and constantly modified to suit circumstances, the battalions were drilled and trained assiduously in all the walks of their profession connected with their own destined service. Every branch of their military life was illustrated by their exercises, and even the officers went through a thorough course of special instruction under accomplished tutors, who were also officers of peculiar ability and experience. While the Duke of Orléans, with the distinguished General Rostolan and two picked lieutenant-colonels, remained at St. Omer in charge of the growing force, another lieutenant-colonel was intrusted with the task of training subordinates to serve as teachers in sharp-shooting, and for this purpose a detachment was assembled at Vincennes, consisting of ten officers and a number of subalterns who had attracted attention by their particular aptitude. These, after having been thoroughly instructed in the manufacture of small arms, the preparation of munitions, and the rules and practice of sharp-shooting, were sent to St. Omer to furnish the new battalions with the officers who were to form part of the permanent organization. The weapon selected was an improvement upon the former carabines of the Tirailleurs; and

while the old proportion, to wit, the eighth part of each battalion, were armed with guns of longer range, and styled distinctively Carabiniers, these were set apart as the picked company of each battalion. The Duke, taking up his residence at St. Omer, attended in person to all that was going forward; and so constant were his exertions, and so warm the zeal of those who assisted the enterprise, that in a few months all the battalions were equipped, armed, and well drilled.

One fine spring morning,—it was in May, 1841,-a long column of troops entered Paris with a celerity hitherto unknown. There was no false glitter, no tinsel; everything was neat and mar tial, with bugles for their only music. and a uniform that was sombre, indeed, but of such harmonious simplicity as to be by no means devoid of elegance. This column consisted of the Chasseurs, coming to receive their standard from the hands of Louis Philippe, and speeding through the streets with their gymnastic step. On the very next day, as though to signalize the serious and entirely military character of the organization, four of these battalions were sent off to Africa, and the remaining six posted at the different leading fortresses of France, where the collections of artillery, etc., enabled them to proceed with the perfect development of their training.

It was only a year later, when the Duke of Orléans was snatched away, on the very eve of some crowning experiments he was about to make in illustration of the full uses and capacities of this force, that it received the title of Chasseurs d'Orléans, which the modesty of its founder would not tolerate during his lifetime. This name they gallantly bore through the combats that marked their novitiate in Africa, where it was at once found that the complete preparation of both officers and men made victory comparatively easy for them. The deadly precision of their aim struck terror into the Arabs, and,

as early as 1842, the splendid behavior of the Sixth Battalion in the bloody fights of the Oued Foddah at once ranged the Chasseurs among the finest troops in Africa. To attempt to follow them step by step in their career would be idle in the space we have here allotted to ourselves. We shall therefore cite merely a few instances where their courage and efficiency shone with peculiar lustre.

In the course of the year 1845, an impostor, playing upon the credulity of the Arabs, and artfully availing himself of the organization ready furnished by the religious sect to which he belonged, succeeded in bringing about a revolt of a great portion of the tribes in Algiers and Oran. He went by the title of "Master of the Hour," a sort of Messiah who had been long expected in that region. But he was more generally known as Bou-Maza, or The Father with the She-Goat, from the fact that a shegoat was his customary companion, and was supposed by the populace to serve him as a medium of communication with the supernatural Powers. This man exhibited a great deal of skill and audacity. His activity was so extraordinary, and he had been seen at so many different points at almost the same time, that his very existence was at first doubted, and many supposed him to be a myth. At one time it was thought that the insurrection had been quelled, as a chief calling himself Bou-Maza had been captured and shot, when, suddenly, the real leader reappeared among the Flittas, one of the most warlike tribes of Algeria, and living in a region very difficult of access. Against these and the Prophet, General Bourjolly, the French commander, marched at once, but unfortunately with very inadequate force. A terrible combat ensued, the Fourth Regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique and the Ninth Battalion of the Chasseurs d'Orléans having to sustain the brunt of it. Both these corps performed prodigies of valor, and it was worth while to hear the men of each recipro

cally narrating the glory and the peril of their comrades, these telling by what noble exploits the mounted Chasseurs (d'Afrique) had saved the remains of Lieutenant-Colonel Berthier, and the others describing the Chasseurs à Pied, how they stood immovable, although without cartridges, around the body of their commander, Clère, with their terrible sword-bayonets bloody to the hilt!

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On almost the same day, the Eighth Battalion succumbed to a frightful catastrophe. At a period of supposed tranquillity, the Souhalia tribe, who had been steadfast allies of the French, were unexpectedly attacked by Abd-el-Kader at the head of an overwhelming force. Lieutenant-Colonel Montagnac, with only sixty-two horsemen of the Second Hussars and three hundred and fifty men of the Eighth Chasseurs d'Orléans, hurried to the rescue. repeatedly warned of the danger, but, despite all that could be said, he dashed at the whole force of Abd-el-Kader. At the very first discharge, Montagnac fell mortally wounded, and in a few moments all the horses and nearly all the men were disabled. Captain Cognord, of the Second Hussars, rallied the survivors, and this little handful of heroes, huddled together upon a hillock, fought like tigers, until their ammunition was exhausted. The Arabs then closed in upon the group, which had become motionless and silent, and, to use the expressive language of an eyewitness, "felled them to the earth as they would overturn a wall." The enemy found none remaining but the dead, or those who were so badly wounded that they gave no sign of life. Before expiring, Montagnac had summoned to his aid a small detachment he had left in reserve. The latter, on its approach, was immediately surrounded, and perished to the very last man. There was now surviving of the whole French force only the Carabinier company of the Eighth Chasseurs, upon whom the Arabs rushed with fury, from every side. After a resistance of almost fabulous hero

ism, during which the flag of the company was shot away in shreds, and the Carabiniers cut their bullets into six and eight pieces so as to prolong their defence, every volley decimating the foe, this little band of seventy men, encumbered with ten wounded, succeeded in wearying and disheartening the Emir to such an extent that he determined to abandon the direct assault which was costing him so dearly, and to surround the French detachment in the ruined building which served them for a refuge, and so starve them out. Captain Dutertre, Adjutant of the Eighth, who had been captured by the Arabs in the early part of the action, was sent forward by the enemy toward his old comrades. For a moment the firing ceased, and the Captain shouted so that all could hear him, "Chasseurs, they have sworn to behead me, if you do not lay down your arms; and I say to you, Die, rather than surrender one single man!"

The Captain was instantly sabred, and the conflict recommenced. The same summons was repeated twice afterwards, and twice failed, when, finally, the firing ceased, and the Arabs bivouacked around their prey. Every possible approach was closed and guarded, and, thus caged in, the Chasseurs remained for three nights and days without food or drink. At length, by a sudden and desperate dash, on the morning of September 26th, the seventy heroes, bearing their ten wounded comrades, succeeded in breaking through the line of Arab sentinels, and escaped to a neighboring chain of hills. Thither they were pursued by their wild foemen, who, although infuriated at the daring and success of this sally, had a sufficient respect for the heavy carabines of the French, and merely hovered closely on their rear, awaiting some favorable opportunity to dash in upon them. This moment soon came. The French soldiers, no longer able to withstand the torments of thirst, descending from the hills, in spite of the entreaties of their of

ficers, dashed into a neighboring stream to cool their burning lips. The instant of doom had come, and, in less time than it takes to recite the narrative, all but twelve of the little band were massacred by the exulting Arabs. The twelve escaped to Djemaa only after terrible privations and sufferings.

We might readily fill a volume with episodes equally glorious and equally gloomy in the career of the Chasseurs. They were in nearly all the brilliant actions of the ensuing Algerian campaigns, and, at Zaatcha, Isly, and other famed engagements, they contended side by side with the renowned Zouaves for the palm of military excellence. Their agility, their promptitude in action, their ardor in attack, and their solidity in retreat, their endurance on the march, their skill and intelligence in availing themselves of every inequality of ground and in turning everything to account, made them so conspicuously preferable, as an infantry. corps, for certain operations, that Marshal Bugeaud caused the number of battalions employed in Africa to be increased to six. From that time to the present, continual progress has been made in the organization, discipline, and instruction of the Chasseurs, and all the objections which at different periods were raised against the special composition and details of the force having been one by one met and obviated, France now counts no less than twenty-one battalions of them in her army.

It was for a long time thought by some, that, although the Chasseurs, like the Zouaves, had been successful in the skirmishing engagements of Algeria, they would not be found so useful in European warfare. This opinion was proved to be erroneous at the siege of Rome, in 1849, where the Chasseurs, armed with their new and terrible weapon, the carabine à tige, in the management of which they had been thoroughly drilled, rendered the most important service; and from what was

seen of them there it became evident that the existence of such a force, so perfected in every particular, would hereafter greatly modify the relations and conditions of the defence and attack of fortified works. The importance of this fact will impress the reader, when he remembers how large a part fortresses have played in warfare since 1815, and especially when he glances at the tendency everywhere perceptible now toward transforming military strongholds into great intrenched camps, as revealed at Antwerp in Belgium, Fredericia in Denmark, Buda and Comorn in Hungary, Peschiera, Mantua, Venice, Verona, and Rome in Italy, Silistria and Sebastopol in the East, and Washington, Manassas, and Richmond in America.

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Other nations have not been slow to follow French example. Russia is idly manufacturing rifled pieces for her service; England is providing her whole army with the Minié musket, and Austria and Prussia are applying inventions of their own to the armament of corps organized and trained on the principle of the French Chasseurs.

The Duke of Wellington is said to have remarked, not long before his death, while speaking of the English troops, that they had, indeed, adopted the new musket, but that it would be physically difficult for them to transform themselves into light infantry. The same observation will undoubtedly apply to all the Continental nations excepting the French; but in the United States, while we could muster the finest heavy troops in the world, we have also the most abundant material for just such light infantry as those described in the foregoing sketch.

The Chasseurs are not merely distinguished as perfect light infantry, but they also form excellent troops of the line. By the weight of their fire, they are capable of producing in battles and sieges effects unknown before their appearance on the scene, and that is the

great point, the entirely new feature about them.

The creation of these battalions, well planned and happily executed as it has been, remains a most important event in military history. Consecrated by the valor and the intelligence of the officers and soldiers of France, it has been the signal and the source of new and rapid reforms. One of these battalions attached to each infantry division adds fresh force to that fine classification which first arose under the Republic, and, although somewhat perverted under the Empire, still remains the basis of the French grand organization, recalling, as it does, the immortal idea of the Roman Legion.

With the aid of its example, and the emulation inspired by the success of the Chasseurs, the splendid system of the French infantry-service has been completed under the present Napoleon; and we now behold the race he rules so disciplined for war, the respective qualities of the North and the South of France, the firmness and solidity of the former and the enthusiasm and ardor of the latter, so beautifully blended, that we may well exclaim, "Here, indeed, is a whole nation armed! in pedite robur!"

In conclusion, the writer and compiler of this sketch would not be venturing too far, perhaps, were he to remark that so excellent an example can be nowhere better followed than in this country, if, as would to-day appear a certainty, we are to turn aside from the ways of peace to study the art of war. We have here precisely the material for whole armies of light infantry, the most favorable conditions for their equipment and instruction, and, owing to the nature of the region we inhabit, its dense woodlands, its wide savannas, its broad rivers, and its numerous ranges of rough mountains, the very land in which the tactics and marksmanship of the Chasseurs would be most available.