philosophy, don't quite forget the cloud over
the two trees. Look up at it now— it is
getting darker and bigger already."

PROMOTION, FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

Two years after his late Majesty, Louis
Philippe, accepted his popular election and
elevation to the throne of France, Marshal
Soult bethought himself of recasting
and remoulding the French military code,
and mindful, unlike many a novus homo of
his own bourgeois origin, military odessy,
and dukely position, brought all his energy
and experience to the drawing up of the
present military code, which is justly cited as
a worthy pendant to the great codes promulgated
by the great Emperor. In that code,
the late marshal takes the private soldier,
and leads him on from grade to grade, from
rank to rank, even when he joins his regiment
as an unsophisticated plough-boy, or a village
ignoramus, until he polishes him on the
regimental school-bench, completes him in his
military exercise, passes him from the sentry-
box to the instruction field, thence to the
accountant's office, thence to the paymaster's
bureau, and thence to an ensign's commission
in his own regiment, where he is received with
all cordiality by his now brother officers.
Thence he proceeds through regimental promotion
by merit, and never by purchase or
exchange, until by time, conduct, or heroic
exploits, the epaulettes of field-officer grace
his shoulders, while stars and decorations
shine refulgent on his breast.

When the young French recruit joins his
regiment, his first three months are employed
in arduous drill, first in the barrack-yard,
and afterwards on the champ-de-manoeuvre,
six or eight recruits being the number allotted
to each drill-sergeant. In both places
he goes through a regular course of marching
and gun-exercise at stated hours of the
day. During those three months his military
instruction alone engrosses his time, and he
learns the école du soldat, the école de
peloton, the école des carrés, and the école
de file, with the various sorts of marching,
countermarching, and evolutions. When
this first part of his military education
is achieved, a grand field-day is commanded,
and all the garrison recruits fully
equipped, are marched off to the champ-
de-manoeuvre where they are put through
all the various exercises in presence of the
commanding officer and his full staff. The
competent recruits are then admitted as
soldats faits, ready-made soldiers, while the
retardataires, or slow coaches, are sent back
for a month or more to the drill-sergeants.
As long as a recruit is not admitted as a
soldat fait, the sobriquet given him by the
older soldiers is pion-pion; but, once admitted,
he becomes one of themselves, and rejoices
in the common family name of troupier. He
may now be received into the regimental
school, where he is instructed, if he desire
it, in grammar, writing, arithmetic, geography,
linear drawing, French composition,
and book-keeping. This school is under
the special direction of two subalterns,
who have been brought up at one or
other of the military colleges. At the end
of three months more— that is six months
after joining— the young recruit may hope
to be promoted to the rank of corporal, provided
he possess all the soldierly and moral
requisites. At the end of six months more,
he may be promoted to the rank of sergeant,
or placed as a clerk in one of the regimental
offices. At the end of twelve months
he may advance to the grade of sergent-
fourrier; at the end of twelve other months, to
that of sergeant-major; at the end of twelve
months more, he may become adjutant, which
is the highest non-commissioned officership
in the French service; and then he may be
inscribed upon the tableau d'avancement,
or promotion-list, for an ensigncy. On obtaining
this grade, he receives from the War-
Office the sum of six hundred and fifty francs
to equip himself, and the pay of fifteen hundred
and ninety francs a year, everything
included. This pay is counted out to him by
twelfths on the first of every month, a reduction
of about seven per cent being made for
the pension-fund— the Invalides or French
Chelsea Hospital, and the widows' relief-fund.
A pension after thirty years' service is
allowed to every French militaire, and its
amount is equal to the one-half of his pay;
if he die, leaving a widow, she then receives
the pension curtailed by one half. Thus a
captain's pay of three thousand francs would
allow him a pension of fifteen hundred, which
he has well earned, and much contributed to,
by a per-centage of thirty years upon his
pay. No subaltern is allowed to marry, unless
he can prove that his intended brings with
her a dowry of at least six hundred francs
per annum. Thus, at the expiration of four
years at least, and six at most, the humble
recruit, be he the son of a prince or a peasant,
of a nobleman, or a bourgeois, is sure to be
promoted to officer-rank. However, in wartime,
as well as in consideration of dashing
exploits, many a stepping-stone is jumped
over, and this is the reason why many hundreds
of French sub-officers who went to the
Crimea with our own non-commissioned officers,
returned as lieutenants and captains,
sporting at the same time the decoration of
the Legion of Honour— not an empty decoration,
for it brings to the sub-officers and
soldiers receiving it a life-income of two
hundred and fifty francs, paid annually in the
month of February.

Thus during the Crimean war, while promotion
from the ranks in the English army
marched snail-like, by solitary units, it galloped
on by hundreds in the French army;
while in France promotion from the ranks
is considered the rule, in England it is the