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Updated: June 12, 2025
A gallant boy, specially named in the despatch, he had such aptitude that at sixteen, as he told me himself, he wore an epaulette on the left shoulder the uniform of a lieutenant at that time; and a contemporary assured me that in handling a ship he was the smartest officer of the deck he had ever known.
Walking one day on the ramparts of the town, I saw an officer of engineers who was directing the execution of the repairs. This officer, M. Cressac, was very young; I had the hardihood to approach him, and to ask him how he had succeeded in so soon wearing an epaulette. "I come from the Polytechnic School," he answered. "What school is that?" "It is a school which one enters by an examination."
He had an erect and warlike bearing, a proud, firm step, and his gold epaulette with its glittering tassels flashing in the sunbeams, his crimson sash contrasting so splendidly with the military blue, his shining sword and waving plume, all impressed me with a grandeur that was overpowering. It dazzled my eye, but did not warm my young heart.
There was substantially no military tradition in the country. Thirty years of peace had seen the disappearance of the officers whom the War of Independence had left in their prime; and the Government fell into that most facile of mistakes, the choice of old men, because when youths they had worn an epaulette, without regarding the experience they had had under it, or since it was laid aside.
The bullets flew about us thick as hail; one passing through my hat, another shredding away half the bullion from the skipper's starboard epaulette, two more actually passing through my jacket and razing the skin; yet by a miracle we escaped unwounded.
To enter into the army, with the hope of escaping from the application necessary to acquire knowledge, letters, and science I run no risk, my lord, in saying this to you to go into the army, with the hope of escaping from knowledge, letters, science, and morality; to wear a red coat and an epaulette; to be called captain; to figure at a ball; to lounge away time in country sports, at country quarters, was never, even in times of peace, creditable; but it is now absurd and base.
This intelligence yet more inflames the English to war. A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows. The Duke of Wellington goes to take leave of the duchess; and a scene passes quite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache. Lord Douro is frightened at his father's feather, but begs for his epaulette.
The service is going to hell, sir! A parcel of brats, with lieutenant's commissions before they should have been clear of the nursery! No, sir; stay on board, or damn me, I'll break you like an egg-shell, before you have taken a shine out of that fine new epaulette! No, no, by God; no more cats here than catch mice.
Each was a law unto himself, suggesting his own means of advancement and estimating his own powers of success; and the result was, a general scramble for rank, dignity, and honors, the unfitness of the possessor for which, when attained, brought neither contempt nor derision. The epaulette was noblesse; the shako, a coronet.
"Ventrebleu!" said the old lieutenant, who had served without promotion from the first battles of the Republic, "you'll be a colonel for that scratch on your epaulette, if we only beat the Prussians to-morrow; and here am I, with eight wounds from lead and steel, and the Petit Caporal never bade me visit him at his bivouac. Come, come!
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