Little would one imagine, as he passes the groups of dainty and
scrupulously neat French officers upon the _boulevards_, looking the
laziest persons in the world, that these seeming carpet-knights are out
upon the _Champ de Mars_ at three o'clock in the morning, and
often drill until nine or ten in the forenoon,--or that the little
_toulourou_, as he is nicknamed, or private of the _ligne_, in his
brick-colored trowsers and clean gaiters, whose voice is the gayest and
whose legs are the nimblest in the barrier-ball, has done a day's work
of parade and gymnastics which equals the toil of an _ouvrier_. Running,
swimming, climbing, and fencing with the bayonet, are often but the
preludes of long marches on duty, or equally long walks to reach the
parade-ground, or to fetch the daily rations of the "mess." Then, too,
during several months of summer, camp-life is led on a grand scale. Vast
encampments, which for size, regularity, and order vie with the old
Roman _castra_, are formed at convenient spots. And here all the details
of actual service are imitated; cavalry and infantry are disciplined in
equally arduous labors; nor does the artillery escape the fatigue of
mock-sieges, sham-fights, and reviews.
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