LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1896.
To detail the manner of life of the French officer
in the enemy's country would occupy too much
space; but it is important to notice the plain
admissions made by General Fantin of the extra-
ordinary extent to which marauding was carried
by the French armies, and the manner in which
it recoiled upon them. The author writes, in 1805,
at Zusmorshausen :-
NOTES:-Napoleon I.: La Grande Armée, 1-Portrait of
First Earl of Nottingham-The Yule of Saxon Days, 2
Jeremy Taylor, 4-The Sea-Serpent-Mottoes for Sundials
-Folk-lore-Matthew Arnold's Cromwell,' 5-M.B. Coats
-Oral Tradition-Happy Text-Cryptogram, 6.
QUERIES:-Spider Folk-lore-Taafe-R. Cosway-French
Bibles Dictionnaire des Girouettes,' 7-Symonds's
Works'-Sargeaunt-Owres Lightship-Motto-Hall-être les alliés et les libérateurs, et je vois avec peine que
Samaden-Reports of Cromwell's Commanders-Our Lady
of Hate-New Testament, Bishops' Version, 8-Swinnerton
-Poem Wanted-" Brucolaques," 9.
REPLIES:-Vatican Emerald, 9-Maypoles, 10-Smoking
in Church, 11-A Newspaper Editor's Reminiscences
Homer: Omar- Armorial Seal- - Rev. Dr. Glasse-W.
"Nous sommes ici en Bavière, pays dont nous devons
nos soldats se conduisent en ennemis......Il me semble
que, par des exemples de sevérité, on pourrait arrêter ces
desordres, qui ne peuvent avoir que des suites funestes,"
prophesying thoroughly the frightful murders and
reprisals afterwards described in the Peninsular
Campaigns. In 1806 the general alludes to the
systematic inroads of the army into the cellars of
the Austrian peasants, and in 1807, after Eylau,
when in cantonments at Guttstadt, upon the Alle,
to the organized system of marauding in vogue,
bringing terrible results to the miserable inhabit-
ants and strife among the different branches of the
French service. Later on, in Spain, nothing is
more noticeable than the ominous allusions made
NOTES ON BOOKS:-Baring-Gould's English Minstrelsie,' in 1808 at Vittoria to the "goût du pillage que
Vol. III.-Cox's 'Introduction to Folk-lore'-Northall's
'Folk-Phrases '-Hooper's Church of St. Peter of Man-
croft, Norwich.'
NAPOLEON I.: LA GRANDE ARMÉE.
I have been reading the "Journal du Général
Fantin des Odoards: Étapes d'un Officier de la
Grande Armée, 1800-1830," Librairie Plon, 1895.
This is a most interesting book, written by a man of
refinement and a keen observer of things both great
and small. The general gives us a description of
certain of the campaigns of Napoleon, as written
by a young officer who passed nearly the whole of
that period of his career with his regiment. While
the romance of courts is but little touched upon,
and the greater operations of war are not alluded to
critically from the point of view of the commander,
the work is the more interesting because it deals
with the wars of the Empire from the observation of
a simple captain, and is taken in many respects
from a standpoint different from those of Marbot
and Thiébault. There are many points which are
critically dealt with; and while much detail is in
a single volume necessarily omitted, there are
several features which delineate clearly the cha-
racteristics of the better class of French officer of
that day. The book also throws a decisive light on
the Emperor's methods of warfare, particularly as
the general treats everything in a plain business-
hike fashion, marked almost throughout by an
absence of that sentiment which has given too high
4 colour to other similar memoirs.
The allusions of General Fantin to his chiefs are
not numerous. For the Emperor, of whose Guard
he was for a time an officer, he has always the
most devoted admiration; but of him he gives
nothing that we do not already know. As in
honour bound, he is convinced of the divine mission
of Napoleon to subdue Europe; and, speaking of
Austerlitz and the Russian losses, adds,
"Une
leçon si vertement donnée paraît donc devoir être
fructueuse, et dégoûter pour longtemps les hordes
du nord de se mêler des affaires du midi de
l'Europe." To the ambitious schemes of Soult he
gives some space, and he aims a dart at the enmity
between that marshal and Ney, while he denounces
the artifice of Murat employed to gain possession
of the all-important bridge over the Danube in
1805. He also mentions, with the business-like
regret of a soldier of fortune, the light hand
exercised by Saint Cyr over the inhabitants of
Dresden in 1813. He makes a droll allusion to
the plebeian character of Marshal Lefebvre, who