At that single word, so stern in its iron command, so full of deep, unutterable agony, she was silenced perforce. The blood had left his lips and cheeks, the ashy hue of death had settled on his forehead in a dark crimson stain, like the stain on his own honour; his eyes were set and fixed, as in the unspeakable torture of the Laocoon; his teeth were clenched as men clench them in their death struggle; one hand was pressed on his heart; he had let go his hold on hers; he would never touch even her hand again; and he panted for breath as if he were suffocated. In the horror of the moment all round him were dumb and paralysed; even she, in her rancorous hate and bitter vengeance on him, paused awe-stricken at the ruin she had wrought, silent before the terrible storm of passion, the unutterable anguish, shame, and horror written in his face.

"Peace! woman-devil! Never cross my path again, or I shall not let you go as I do now!"

Speaking with a strange unnatural calm that sounded more fearful to us than the wildest outburst of rage or anguish, De Vigne, with his right hand pressed hard upon his chest, turned to leave the church. But his mother threw herself before him. "Granville, my love, my darling! stay, for God's sake, stay!"

He strained her to his heart, then put her gently aside to Sabretasche. "Let me go-let me go!" he said, hoarsely.

We could none of us attempt to stop him. He pushed his way through the crowd like a madman, and we heard the rapid rush of his carriage wheels as they rolled away-God knows where.

RECIPE FOR THE CONIC SECTIONS.

A JEU D'ESPRIT.

BY W. CHARLES KENT.

GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THE ANONYMOUS AUTHOR OF "THIRTY DAYS HATH SEPTEMBER."

TAKE a sugar-loaf first as the shape of your cone,
Next a keen-bladed knife newly stropped on a hone;
Then cut sheer down the middle, not chipping a spangle,
And behold on each section, distinct, a triangle!

Now with stroke horizontal cleave summit from base,

And a circle is seen in the dissevered place.

Midway down on each side carve two vertical slips,
And on either hand, lo! in each wound an ellipse.
Parallèl with the slope of the cone then at last

Through the sugar-loaf flint be the Augur's blade passed,
When you finish your quaint geometrical frolic
With a curve parabolic and curve hyperbolic.

THE FRENCH SOLDIER.

Or the many remarkable sights Paris the magnificent has to offer the traveller, the unmilitary Englishman is most struck by the remarkable number of soldiers he sees lounging about the streets. It seems to him as if the emperor has been desirous of setting before him specimens of all the regiments he possesses, from the dashing Zouave of the Guard down to the clod-hopping tourlourou, who has not yet put off his air of rusticity. As very little is known among ourselves as to the mode of life of these men, and as, moreover, it has been lately the battle-horse of army reformers to put up the French soldier as a model to be imitated, we have ventured to string together some facts about the Gallic soldier from certain recently published French works on military matters, which, we think, are not without their interest, even be it only on the principle, fas est et ab hoste doceri.

Many people talk about the Zouave, but few know him. Everybody has seen him lazily crouching at the wicket of the Tuileries, like a granitic sphynx at the entrance of Assyrian palaces, mounting guard with a most melancholy air. As he chewed his cud, he was in all probability sighing for that African sun to which the beams cast by our degenerate luminary are but as moonbeams. A piece of white or green calico rolled round a red fez, a blue jacket with red or yellow facings, leaving the throat entirely bare, wide Oriental trousers, white gaiters rising a little above the ankle, constitute his attire. As for the wearer, he is short, muscular, broad-shouldered, with shorn head and huge beard, with flashing eye and crafty smile the first soldier in the world for dashes, outpost skirmishes, and forced marches. Accustomed to pursue the Arab, his eternal enemy, the Zouave is acquainted with all the war ruses of the desert, for he has learned them at his own expense: hence he will ever surprise any European troops. If the Arab be cunning, the Zouave is more cunning still: he can disguise himself like a clod of grass and advance imperceptibly on the sentinel he desires to surprise; he can walk noiselessly, remain motionless for hours, hide himself behind the smallest rising ground, and follow a trail with the pertinacity of a sleuth-hound. As a scout, he has not his equal: if a position has to be carried, he rushes forward head down, upsetting all he comes in contact with. He is no longer a man but a cannon-ball: he must either reach his destination or fall on the road.

The Zouzou, as the French affectionately call the Zouave, cordially detests all large towns, and holds garrisons in horror. There he has to clean his weapons carefully, mount guard, and go on parade, matters annoying to the soldier generally, but insupportable to the Zouave. Perhaps he is rather too fond of noisy pleasures, if we may trust the following couplet from a song that describes him :

Quand le Zouzou, coiffé de son fez,

A par hasard quequ' goutt' sous l' nez,
Le tremblement se met dans la cambuse;
Mais s'il faut se flanquer des coups,
Il sait rendre atouts pour atouts,
Et gare dessous :

C'est le Zouzou qui s'amuse!
Des coups, des coups, des coups,

C'est le Zouzou qui s'amuse!

What the Zouave requires is the free ease of camp life, a razzia in an enemy's country, and a meal improvised in the tent. If his flask be three parts full, the stock of coffee not too near its end, and if he have a morsel of anything-he is not particular what to grease the pot, he sings, is gay, is happy, is hiniself. It is true that when he is not in luck's way he is equally gay, and only sings the louder. The Zouave is indebted to the Algerian campaign for his adventurous tastes and his almost nomadic habits. Through incessantly pursuing the Arab from marshes to forests, from deserts to mountains, he has assumed something of those erratic tribes' mode of life. Like them, he considers a hut-six feet of canvas for several men—as a very agreeable habitation, and he has grown accustomed to confine his wants and his desires to what his havresack can contain. Like Bias the philosopher, the Zouave carries all he possesses about him, but it is a treat to see his sack when starting on an expedition. It is monstrous, and you are inclined to ask whether he will not succumb beneath the weight, or throw it away at the first halt. He would sooner die. Usually, when entering on a campaign, foot soldiers reduce as far as possible their "ace of diamonds:" the officers not only authorise, but advise it. But this the Zouave does not do: at such a moment his "hair chest of drawers" appears to him too small. He reduces articles to their smallest compass, and packs until the straps go too short and the bag threatens to burst. He carries in it, for instance, thread, needles, buttons, a thimble, wax, soap, tallow, pipeclay, a fork, one or two spoons, and several knives, without counting the indispensable condiments for producing a savoury frichtic. For the Zouave is pre-eminently dainty, and as he had no servant to wait on him, he made up his mind to become the first cook in the army. His ragoûts would not, perhaps, be successful at Véfour's, but in the desert many a general officer has licked his fingers over them. Anybody is capable of making a civet, given the hare, but making it without the hare is a heavy task truly worthy of the Zouave. His fertile imagination flashes most when he has the least: then he displays all his resources, he seeks, invents, and finds. On those days he dines admirably, but many an animal is turned from its destination to march to the caldron. "I do not ask my Zouaves for strawberries,” Canrobert once said in the desert, during a frightful heat, "but if I felt inclined for them, they are capable of digging them up for me in the sand." At the present day the Zouave is the most popular of all soldiers, and his chachia threatens to become legendary, like the bearskin of the Grenadiers of the First Empire.

To the Zouave are due the words of the celebrated march known as the Casquette, and this is their origin: One night the French camp was surprised by the Arabs; a terrible fire astonished the soldiers, and they all but hesitated. Marshal Bugeaud, however, rushed from his tent, and the mere presence of the brave old man restored all the order of the troops, and the enemy was repulsed. When the fight was over, the marshal perceived that everybody smiled on looking at him, and he raised his hands to his head. In his precipitation he had gone into action wearing the far from heroic crown of the King of Yvetot-a

cotton nightcap, in a word. On the morrow, when the buglers sounded the march, the Zouaves, in remembrance of this original cap, struck up in chorus:

As tu vu
La casquette,

La casquette,

As tu vu
La casquette

Du père Bugeaud?

Two or three days later the marshal, when giving the orders to start, said, addressing the buglers, "Sound the Casquetle." The name has stuck to this march, and it has led the Zouaves to many a victory.

Another characteristic type of the French army is the Chasseur à Pied, who is truly the soldier of his age-a steam soldier: he goes from Vincennes to Paris in thirty-five minutes, or just half the time a respectable cab takes. The Chasseur à Pied, known originally as the Tirailleur de Vincennes, is quite as popular as the Zouave. In Paris he is called dératé, or vitrier. The first of these epithets explains itself; as for the second, etymologists are not agreed; some asserting that it is a corruption of the word vitier (a man who goes quickly), given to the Chasseurs on their formation at the camp of Saint Omer. Others declare that it comes from their green epaulettes. Be this as it may, the Chasseurs have displayed their prowess on many a well-fought field, and at the outset they inspired the Arabs with an invincible terror. In fact, during an action, everything combines to give them a terrible appearance; their dark uniform and the hoarse sound of the bugles make them resemble a legion of unchained demons in the midst of the smoke. On seeing them run up, the Arabs bolted at full speed. "Here come the negro Lascars!" they shouted. Some volunteer has sung their exploits in a ballad of some thirty or forty verses, of which we supply a specimen :

The Chasseurs have a fearful weapon: their tige rifle, loaded with oblong balls, pierces a two-inch plank at a distance of twelve hundred yards; and as nearly all the Chasseurs are good marksmen, they make frightful ravages in the enemy's ranks. At the outset, the Arabs, hit at such an enormous range, believed in some devilry.

At Sebastopol the volunteer rifles, or "enfans perdus," were recruited from the ranks of the Chasseurs. Hidden behind the smallest rise in the ground, they managed to get within range of the batteries, and then it was all over with the gunners, and the artillery was speedily silenced. Any one who has not seen the manoeuvres of the Chasseurs à Pied can form no idea of the prodigies effected by discipline and daily practice. Their ordinary pace is quick march, their quick march a perfect race. At the bugle call they scatter in every direction, disappear, kneel down, lie on their backs or stomachs, load their guns, aim, and fire in every

possible position. Another signal is heard, and they fall in at lightning speed, with fixed bayonets, prepared to charge. A charge of the Chasseurs, when made at full speed, is irresistible: however dense may be the mass on which they rush, they tear it open with their wide swordbayonets, and rush through it, leaving sanguinary traces behind them. At Sebastopol Prince Menschikoff declared that they were demons. The Chasseurs are very proud of their renown for speed. One morning an order of the day was read to them, beginning thus: "Soldiers, we are about to march on the enemy." "Oh, oh," they exclaimed, "that is not meant for us." They would have written "run.” When not on duty the Chasseur maintains involuntarily his rapid pace: he has also a rather rackety look: he likes to wear his shako "on three hairs," and his waist-belt is drawn in most enormously, for the vitrier must have an ant's stomach. As he is light and well-built, he adores dancing, which is his strong point, and obtains successes which only the Parisian Pompier can dispute with him. Very naturally the belles admire this brilliant dancer, but do not put much faith in him, for the vitrier is even more inconstant than the Voltigeur, who is the true butterfly of love. At Paris he affections the bosky shades of Vincennes and St. Mandé. On Monday, Thursday, and Sunday, he hurries to dance to the sound of the key-bugles of the Barrière du Trône, delighted if he has leave to stay out of barracks till midnight; he always finds there a friend, who fraternally shares with him sundry bottles of wine. It would be unjust not to say a word about the bugler of the Chasseur à Pied: it is difficult to understand how the private, loaded with havresack, arms, food, and ammunition, can run without loss of breath; but that the bugler, while running like the rest, also finds means and breath to sound the call, is incomprehensible.

We must not neglect in this sketch the foot soldier of the line, otherwise called the piou-piou, or the lignard, for the infantry are really and truly the French army: they have shed their blood on every battle-field, and many a victory has been due to their exertions. They rushed shoeless, without food and artillery, over the Alps, to conquer Italy; they fought, too, at the Pyramids, at Eylau, and the Moskowa. The uniform of the line-infantry has nothing brilliant about it, and yet in a body it produces the most pleasant effect; it is also the most convenient and the most appropriate to the wants of the soldier in the field. At reviews, on parade, and the Boulevards, there are perhaps regiments that catch the eye more speedily, but the line must not be seen there. It is grand when manoeuvring under the enemy's fire with the same precision as on the Champ de Mars. Each regiment has become a body, of which the officers form the head. If a cannon-ball carries away a whole file, the order is given to close up, and the order is carried out without precipitation, confusion, or alarm. "A regiment of the line charging the enemy at the bayonet's point is a grand sight;"-so writes one of our enthusiastic authors. "Look through the ranks, examine one after the other these soldiers, blackened with powder, and try to recognise the piou-piou whom you saw lounging before the shops in large towns, with his shako on the back of his head, and his stomach sticking out. The piou-piou of yesterday is the hero of to-day. Danger, at this hour, illumines all heads; courage gleams on every brow. Make way for the line! for the glorious