THE FRENCH PEASANT AS A SOLDIER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2363, 8 June 1899, Page 56

THE FRENCH PEASANT AS A SOLDIER.

(Cornhill Magazine.)

Among the messmates who first drew my attention were Neraudj a Parisian printer, a pragmatic, conceited fellow ; Bergeret, a miner ; Unde, a cheerful, poverty-stricken workman who washed the company's linen ito gain a little pocket-money ; Pompee, a greedy and placid peasant of the Midlands ; Due, a clever journeyman ; Leon, who knew all the latest comic ongs ; Bousson, a redhaired vine-dresser ; Jerome, the smallest man in the company, a crook-legged dwarf, sharp-eyed and shrewd. Belonging to us, but sleeping in the next room, was Jacques, a strong, thin, beardless lad. It is scarcely possible for any man to be as stupid as he appeared, and in some ways must have been. One day a fiery adjutant was questioning him ; Jie stood there, ■ dumb as a fish. "Come!" said the adjutant, "even ignorance has bounds. You must learn! You are a Frenchman — a soldier ; do you know why you arc here, instead of working in your fields?" — Jacques gave no answer. - " I ask you why you are here — a, soldier? You give no answer. Have you never heard of the Germans?"— "No, my adjutant." "You have never heard of the Germans. What is Germany?" — "I don'fr know." "Are you a Frenchman or a German?" —"I don't know." "This is wonderful! Where -were you born?" — "At Vaucouleurs, my adjutant." "At Vaucouleurs, and not a patriot! Did no one ever tell you of the invasion?" — "No, my adjutant." One day Jacques, in a fit of despondency, sat crying on his bed. The men who shed tears were always strong, ignorant peasants. They felt vaguely that they wer ridiculed by their comrades ; they did not know why they were there, away from all they knew" and understood ; the hard, slow, monotonous, patient labour, so different from the mysterious tasks of military life, the endless worry of accoutrements, the pitiless practical jokes, the orders, countersorders, and disorders. They thought of their family, their unsown fields, of the church that to them was the centre of social life, and they wept silently, as deaf to the comrades who tried to comfort them as to those who jeered and taunted them. The corporal, who disliked a man who was no credit to him, took no notice. Presently a sergeant came in, and observing the crouching figure shaken with sobs, asked what was the. matter. He received no answer, but sitting down on the bed he tried to explain to the lad what patriotism meant, and why three years of his life must be given up to slavish obedience in a barrack-yard. No direct idea of the sergeant's Kindly harangue reached his mind, but for the first time he realised that ho was still surrounded by human beings. Soon after the evening class for illiterates •was started, and, without learning A from B, he derived a strange consolation from attending it. Another peasant, apparently more stupid than himself, within two months learned to read and write tolerably. — a feat which .eecas to show enormous

latent abilfFy when one considers that the only study hour was at the end of a hard day's work. . . . Jacques and two other men were sent to make up the o-arrison of a small fortress about nine miles off, a place where even constant fires could not dry the damp that stood on the walls, and where rheumatism abounded. A few days after he reappeared, smiling amiably. "I have come back. •Ye's, I didn't like it there!' 1 . Corporal Stein* narrowly escaped apoplexy ; he poured out a vehement stream of reproaches, threatening everything short of decapitation. Jacques listened with bland indifference. He was marched off to the salle de police, •while our captain, much worried by the incident, telephoned to the fortress. When I took him his supper I found him in no ■way disconcerted, but talking in a cajoling fashion to a cat that was mewing from the store-room window. The next day he ■was taken back to the fortress by a sergeant and a corporal, who, irritated by the unnecessary labour, did their best to frighten him. But none of their terrible threats came to pass ; the officer in command of the fortress decided that he was an incorrigible dunderhead, and from that time forth Jacques led an easy life, attending . drill ,. when he liked, working when he -jhose.