CANROBFRT'S ORDEAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2523, 23 July 1902, Page 72

CANROBFRT'S ORDEAL.

A REVIEW OF THE DUKE OP CAMBRIDGE AFIER THE CRIMEAN; WAR.

(From the 'Memoirs of Canrobert.' j

His Royal Highness, who had taken command, in Lord Raglan's absence, came to invite me to review the English troops. It was unpo.o&ibl- to show more courtesy than he had done, coming, as he did, in pei'.sou to deliver this invitation to mej but it had not occurred to him that the date fixed for the review was June 18, tho .aefiiXiisauc ul Waterloo; nor^ indeed, to

me either, at the moment ; 1 did not pay any heed to the date.

Next day at the hour agreed upon I was ©n the ground in full parade uniform, accompanied by my staff. The English army was drawn up in long file ; to the right, the Guards, with their high, hairy headgear; then the Highlanders, wita their feather-trimmed caps, th?ir itrange costumes, and their bagpipes with sounds stranger still ; and last tie infantry, with their tufted shakos and their red tunics with white gimp. The Duk^ oc Cambridge asked me to take the right. The sun was beaming brightly, causing the arms to glisten, and ■we sa,w the flags waving in the wind, and all covered over with names embroidered in gold. It was a superb picture, and I ci.joyed it with the fulness of my faculties. We took the right of the line of battle — it was the Guaids who occupied it — and we began to move along in front of their ranks. HiTving got level with the first battalion, I sahited^it. At the same moment the flag ■was lowered to return my salute, and on the unfolded tissue I read in large letters : "Kamillies, Malplaqtiet, Les Arapiles, Vittoria . . . Waterloo." These were precisely the most disastrous days of the history of France that I, a French general, was thus compelled respectfully to salute on the anniversary of Waterloo, in the midst of English generals who had fought there. ... I was unable, cio what I could, to repress the emotion that was choking me during 'hat second. Cold shivers ran through my body ; the hand w ith. which I held my hat while saluting trembled like a dead leaf. Still, anxious to let nothing of all that appear. I went on saluting one after tLe other, down to tha very ]a.~t of them, the coloui& on which I could always read : ''Les Arapiles, Vittoria . . . Waterloo." That was one of the most violent emotions I have ever gone through in my life, and it was all the more powerful that I was constrained to keep it down. When it was all over I was- obliged to pull myself tog< ther m order to shake hands with the DIIII2 of Cambridge, to render him my thanks, to offer him my congratulaticns. But he was far too quick-sighted not to have noticed what I had gone through, and fai* too tactful to make the fainte&t alUmon to it Uai. from that day onward, wiienevoi- Fivnch officers were invited to review the English army, the colours remained under cover. ;.nd neither Raint-Arnaud, Peh.-^ier. nor myself had jn the future any similar 01 deal*, to go through.

As for us, we had no necl to cover up our colours ; the names inscribed on them had nothing that could wound the sensitiveness of our allies.