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He was handsome, keenly intelligent looking and not typically French, although he was dressed in the uniform of a branch of the French service, wearing a major's chevrons. As the Red Cross girl came nearer, he put his heels together smartly, removed his kepi, and bowed stiffly from the waist. It was not a Frenchman's bow.
He unsaddled him, fastened him in the little shed, rubbed him down with a great handful of straw, after which he entered the house, relieved himself of his sword and kepi, replaced the latter by an old straw hat, value sixpence, and then went to look for his godfather in the garden.
There was no uniformity in their apparel, yet each one wore some portion of a martial and resplendent dress an ornamented kepi, or a scarlet sash, or big golden epaulets, or a military coat braided with yellow. The leader, who was a giant, and carried the smallest instrument, outshone all the others in his incongruous splendor.
A few miles outside of the suburbs of Paris may be seen as complete a system of trenches as on the front, and the kepi of the territorial digging a trench is a familiar sight almost anywhere in eastern France. It is inconceivable that any "drive" on the western front could be successful. The confidence of the French rests in part on these precautions.
We came out on a wide rolling plain, and in the waning light of a winter's day we suddenly saw among the stubble and between the oat-ricks, far as the eye could reach, thousands of little tricolour flags fluttering in the breeze. By each flag was a wooden cross. By each cross was a soldier's képi, and sometimes a coat, bleached by the sun and rain.
He had seen him once before, after the 18th of March, wearing a gold-laced kepi; he seemed by his bedizened uniform to have risen in rank, was probably on the staff of some one of the many generals who were never seen where there was fighting going on.
Everyone was familiar with the personal appearance of both riders, and recognized them, but until now Mademoiselle de Vermont had always ridden alone, and now to see her accompanied by the gallant General, whose embroidered kepi glittered in the sunlight, was a new spectacle for the gallery.
I have just returned from the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. When I got there at about two o'clock six or seven thousand manifesters had already congregated there. They were all, as is the nature of Frenchmen in a crowd, shouting their political opinions into their neighbours' ears. Almost all of them were Nationaux from the Faubourgs, and although they were not armed, they wore a kepi, or some other distinctive military badge. As well as I could judge, nine out of ten were working men. Their object, as a sharp, wiry artizan bellowed into my ear, was to force the Government to consent to the election of a Commune, in order that the Chassepots may be more fairly distributed between the bourgeois and the ouvriers, and that Paris shall no longer render itself ridiculous by waiting within its walls until its provisions are exhausted and it is forced to capitulate. There appeared to be no disposition to pillage; rightly or wrongly, these men consider that the Government is wanting in energy, and that it is the representative of the bourgeoisie and not of the entire population. Every now and then, some one shouted out "Vive la Commune!" and all waved their caps and took up the cry. After these somewhat monotonous proceedings had continued about half an hour, several bourgeois battalions of National Guards came along the quay, and drew up in line, four deep, before the Hôtel de Ville. They were not molested except with words. The leading ranks of the manifesters endeavoured by their eloquence to convince them that they ought not to prevent citizens peacefully expressing their opinions; but the grocers stood stolidly to their arms, and vouchsafed no reply. At three o'clock General Trochu with his staff rode along inside the line, and then withdrew. General Tamisier then made a speech, which of course no one could hear. Shortly afterwards there was a cry of "Voil
He comes down the stairs as stiff as a ramrod, lifts his gloved hand to his kepi, as he says, "Bon jour, madame, vous allez bien ce matin?" This morning I remarked to him as he was ready to mount: "Well, young man, I advise you to turn up your collar; the air is biting."
In this alley stood the Black Holster with his kepi firmly resting upon his head, his arms folded, his eyes spying to left and right in order to intercept any signals exchanged between the sheep and goats. The priest was changed every week.
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