BY ARCHIBALD FORBES, LL.D.
NOTE
My obligations for permission to incorporate some of the articles inthis volume are due to Messrs. George Routledge and Sons, Mr. JamesKnowles of the Nineteenth Century, Mr. Percy Bunting of theContemporary Review, and the Proprietor of McClure's Magazine.
LONDON, June 1896.
CONTENTS
1. MATRIMONY UNDER FIRE
2. REVERENCING THE GOLDEN FEET
3. GERMAN WAR PRAYERS
4. MISS PRIEST'S BRIDECAKE
5. A VERSION OF BALACLAVA
6. HOW I "SAVED FRANCE"
7. CHRISTMAS IN A CAVALRY REGIMENT
8. THE MYSTERY OF MONSIEUR REGNIER
9. RAILWAY LIZZ
10. MY NATIVE SALMON RIVER
11. THE CAWNPORE OF TO-DAY
12. BISMARCK BEFORE AND DURING THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
13. THE INVERNESS "CHARACTER" FAIR
14. THE WARFARE OF THE FUTURE
15. GEORGE MARTELL'S BANDOBAST
16. THE LUCKNOW OF TO-DAY
17. THE MILITARY COURAGE OF ROYALTY
18. PARADE OF THE COMMISSIONAIRES
19. THE INNER HISTORY OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN
The interval between the declaration of the Franco-German war of1870-71, and the "military promenade," at which the poor PrinceImperial received his "baptism of fire," was a pleasant, lazy time atSaarbrücken; to which pretty frontier town I had early betaken myself,in the anticipation, which proved well founded, that the tide of warwould flow that way first. What a pity it is that all war cannot belike this early phase of it, of which I speak! It was playing atwarfare, with just enough of the grim reality cropping up occasionally,to give the zest which the reckless Frenchwoman declared was added to apleasure by its being also a sin. The officers of theHohenzollerns—our only infantry regiment in garrison—drank their beerplacidly under the lime-tree in the market-place, as their men smokeddrowsily, lying among the straw behind the stacked arms ready for useat a moment's notice. The infantry patrol skirted the frontier lineevery morning in the gray dawn, occasionally exchanging with littleresult a few shots with the French outposts on the Spicheren or down inthe valley bounded by the Schönecken wood. The Uhlans, their piebaldlance-pennants fluttering in the wind, cantered leisurely round thecrests of the little knolls which formed the vedette posts, despisingmightily the straggling chassepot bullets which were pitched at themfrom time to time in a desultory way; but which, desultory as theywere, now and then brought lance-pennant and its bearer to theground—an occurrence invariably followed by a little spurt of livelyhostility.
I had my quarters at the Rheinischer Hof, a right comfortable hotel onthe St. Johann side of the Saar, where most of the Hohenzollernofficers frequented the table d'hôte and where quaint little Max, thedrollest imp of a waiter i