a commission, to enter and serve as common soldiers. The two years of their stay at the school counts as a part of their service. It is only in the special case of loss of time caused by illness, that permission is given to remain a third year.

The ordinary payment is 607. (1,500 francs) per annum. All whose inability to pay this amount is satisfactorily established, may claim, as at the Polytechnic, an allowance of the whole or of half of the expenses from the State, to which may be added an allowance for the whole or for a portion of the outfit (from 24l. to 281.) These bourses or demi-bourses, with the trousseau, or demi-trousseau, have during the last few years been granted unsparingly. One-third of the 800 young men at the school in February 1856 were boursiers or demi-boursiers. Candidates admitted from the Orphan School of La Flèche, where the sons of officers wounded or killed in service receive a gratuitous education, are maintained in the same manner here.*

It was the rule till lately that cadets appointed, on leaving St. Cyr, to the cavalry should be placed for two years at the Cavalry School at Saumur. This, however, has recently been changed; on entering St. Cyr those who desire appointments in the cavalry declare their wishes, and are put at once through a course of training in horsemanship. Those who are found unfit are quickly withdrawn; the remainder, if their place on the final examination allows of their appointment to the cavalry, are by that time sufficiently well practiced to be able to join their regiments at once.

Twenty-seven, or sometimes a greater number, are annually at the close of their second year of study placed in competition with twenty-five candidates from the second lieutenants belonging to the army, if so many are forthcoming, for admission to the Staff School at Paris. This advantage is one object which serves as a stimulus to exertion, the permission being given according to rank in the classification by order of merit.

The school consists of two divisions, the upper and the lower, corresponding to the two years of the course. Each division is divided again into four companies. In each of these eight companies there are sub-officers chosen from the élèves themselves, with

About twenty-five are sent every year from La Flèche. The admissions from the army (i. e., of soldiers between twenty and twenty-five years old) do not amount to more than four or at the utmost five per cent. They are very frequently young men who have previously failed for St. Cyr. and who then enter the army as privates, and come in as such. They have to pass the same examination.

Few usually present themselves; and these also, it is said, are very generally old élèves of St. Cyr, who had not succeeded in obtaining admission to the Staff School before. They are not examined with the pupils of St. Cyr, but are intercalated in the list according to their merit.

the titles of Sergent, Sergent Fourrier, and Caporal; those appointed to the companies of the junior division are selected from the second year cadets, and their superiority in standing appears to give these latter some considerable authority, exercised occasionally well, occasionally ill. The whole school, thus divided into eight companies, constitutes one battalion.

The establishment for conducting the school consists of—

A General as Commandant.

A Second in Command (a Colonel of Infantry.)

A Major, 4 Captains, 12 Lieutenants, and 5 Second Lieutenants of Infantry; the Major holding the office of Commandant of the Battalion.

A Major, 1 Captain, 34 Lieutenants, and 3 Second Lieutenants of Cavalry to superintend the exercises, the riding, &c.

A Director of Studies (at present a Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers.)

Two Assistant Directors.

Six Examiners for Admission.

One Professor of Artillery.

One Assistant ditto.

One Professor of Topography and Mathematics.

One Professor of Military Administration, Military Art, and Military History. One Professor of Fortification.

One Professor of Military Literature.

Two Professors of History and Geography.

One Professor of Descriptive Geometry.

One Professor of Physics and Chemistry.
Three Professors of Drawing,

One Professor of German.

Eleven Military and six Civilian Assistant Teachers (Répétiteurs.)

There is also a Quartermaster, a Treasurer, a Steward, a Secretary of the Archives, who is also Librarian, an Almoner (a clergyman,) four or five Surgeons, a Veterinary Surgeon, who gives lessons on the subject, and twelve Fencing Masters.

The professors and teachers are almost entirely military men. Some difficulty appears to be found by civilians in keeping sufficient order in the large classes; and it has been found useful to have as répétiteurs persons who could also be employed in maintaining discipline in the house. Among the professors at present there are several officers of the engineers and of the artillery, and of the staff corps.

There is a board or council of instruction, composed of the commandant, the second in command, one of the field officers of the school staff, the director of studies, one of the assistant directors, and four professors.

So, again, the commandant, the second in command, one of the field officers, two captains, and two lieutenants, the last four changing every year, compose the board or council of discipline.

St. Cyr is a little village about three miles beyond the town of Versailles, and but a short distance from the boundary of the park. The buildings occupied by the school are those formerly used by Madame de Maintenon, and the school which she superintended.

Her garden has given place for the parade and exercise grounds; the chapel still remains in use; and her portrait is preserved in the apartments of the commandant. The buildings form several courts or quadrangles; the Court of Rivoli, occupied chiefly by the apartments and bureaux of the officers of the establishment, and terminated by the chapel; the Courts of Austerlitz, and Marengo, more particularly devoted to the young soldiers themselves; and that of Wagram, which is incomplete, and opens into the parade grounds. These, with the large stables, the new riding school, the exercising ground for the cavalry, and the polygon for artillery practice, extend to some little distance beyond the limit of the old gardens into the open arable land which descends northwards from the school, the small village of St. Cyr lying adjacent to it on the south.

The ground floor of the buildings forming the Courts of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram appeared to be occupied by the two refectories, by the lecture-rooms or amphitheaters, each holding two hundred pupils, and by the chambers in which the ordinary questionings, similar to those already described in the account of the Polytechnic School, under the name of interrogations particu lières, are conducted.

On the first floor are the salles d'étude and the salle des collections the museum or repertory of plans, instruments, models and machines, and the library; on the second floor the ordinary dormitories; and on the third (the attics,) supplementary dormitories to accommodate the extra number of pupils who have been admitted since the commencement of the war.

The commission, when visiting the school, was conducted on leaving the apartments of the commandant to the nearest of the two refectories. It was after one o'clock, and the long room was in the full possession of the whole first or junior division. A crowd of active and spirited-looking young soldiers, four hundred at least in number, were ranged at two long rows of small tables, each large enough, perhaps, for twelve; while in the narrow passage extending up and down the room, between the two rows, stood the officers on duty for the maintenance of order. On passing back to the corridor, the stream of the second year cadets was issuing from their opposite refectory. In the adjoining buttery, the loaf was produced, one kilogramme in weight, which constitutes the daily allowance. It is divided into four parts, eaten at breakfast, dinner, the afternoon lunch or gouter, and the supper. The daily cost of each pupil's food is estimated at 1 f. 80 c.

The lecture rooms and museums offer nothing for special remark. In the library containing 12,000 books and a fine collection of maps, there were a few of the young men, who are admitted during one hour every day.

The salles d'étude on the first floor are, in contrast to those at the Polytechnic, large rooms, containing, under the present circumstances of the school, no less than two hundred young men. There are, in all, four such rooms, furnished with rows of desks on each side and overlooked in time of study by an officer posted in each to preserve order, and, so far as possible, prevent any idleness.

From these another staircase conducts to the dormitories, containing one hundred each, and named after the battles of the present war-Alma, Inkerman, Balaclava, Bomarsund. They were much in the style of those in ordinary barracks, occupied by rows of small iron beds, each with a shelf over it, and a box at the side. The young men make their own beds, clean their own boots, and sweep out the dormitories themselves. Their clothing, some portions of which we here had the opportunity of noticing, is that of the common soldier, the cloth being merely a little finer.

Above these ordinary dormitories are the attics, now applied to the use of the additional three hundred whom the school has latterly received.

The young men, who had been seen hurrying with their muskets to the parade ground, were now visible from the upper windows, assembled, and commencing their exercises. And when, after passing downwards and visiting the stables, which contain three hundred and sixty horses, attended to by two hundred cavalry soldiers, we found ourselves on the exercising ground, the cavalry cadets were at drill, part mounted, the others going through the lance exercise on foot. In the riding-school a squad of infantry cadets were receiving their weekly riding lesson. The cavalry cadets ride three hours a-day; those of the infantry about one hour a week. The exercising ground communicates with the parade ground; here the greater number of the young men were at infantry drill, under arms. small squad was at field-gun drill in an adjoining square. Beyond this and the exercising ground is the practice ground, where musket and artillery practice is carried on during the summer. Returning to the parade ground we found the cadets united into a battalion; they formed line and went through the manual exercise, and afterwards marched past; they did their exercise remarkably well. Some had been only three months at the school. The

A

marching past was satisfactory; it was in three ranks, in the usual French manner.

Young men intended for the cavalry are instructed in infantry and artillery movements and drill; just as those intended for the infantry are taught riding, and receive instruction in cavalry, as well as artillery drill and movements.

It is during the second year of their stay they receive most instruction in the arms of the service to which they are not destined, and this, it is said, is a most important part of their instruction. "It is this," said the General Commandant, "that made it practicable, for example, in the Crimea, to find among the old élèves of St. Cyr, officers fit for the artillery, the engineers, the staff; and for general officers, of course, it is of the greatest advantage to have known from actual study something of every branch."

The ordinary school vacation last six or seven weeks in the year. The young men are not allowed to quit the grounds except on Sundays. On that day there is mass for the young men.

The routine of the day varies considerably with the season. In winter it is much as follows:-At 5 A. M. the drum beats, the young men quit theis beds; in twelve minutes they are all dressed and out, and the dormitories are cleared. The rappel sounds on the grand carré; they form in their companies, enter their salles, and prepare for the lecture of the day until a quarter to 7. At 7 o'clock the officers on duty for the week enter the dormitories, to which the pupils now return, at a quarter to 8 the whole body passes muster in the dormitories, in which they have apparently by this time made their beds and restored cleanliness and order. Breakfast is taken at one time or other during the interval between a quarter to 7 and 8 o'clock.

They march to their lecture rooms at 8, the lecture lasts till a quarter past 9, when they are in like manner marched out, and are allowed a quarter of an hour of amusement. They then enter the halls of study, make up their notes on the lecture they have come from, and after an hour and a half employed in this way, for another hour and a half are set to drawing.

Dinner at 1 is followed by recreation till 2. Two hours from 2 to a quarter past 4 are devoted to military services.

From 4 to 6 P. M. part are occupied in study of the drill-book (théorie,) part in riding or fencing: a quarter of an hour's recreation follows, and from 6 to 8 there are two hours of study in the salles. At half-past 8 the day concludes with the supper.