Soldata de France : Grognards et Hera, de Vingt Arse.
Par- le Comte de Lort de Serignan. (Paris : Perrin. 6 fr.)—These inter- esting biographical essays on French soldiers of the Napoleonic age relate-to veterans like Captain Coignet, whose memoirs, published in his lifetime, seem to have been largely a romance, and to the youths —the " Marie-Louise," as they were nicknamed—who were called up prematurely before and after the collapse of the Grand Army in Russia. The sad fate of two of these brave lads, the Aide- Major Socrate Blanc, who was only eighteen, and the Lieutenant Alexandre 4 Bontin, is told in the closing chapters. The• most curious story in the book is that of Napoleon's most daring spy, Charles Louis Schulmeister, a native of Baden, who settled in Alsace and became acquainted with Savary long before he was famous as the head of Napoleon's secret service. Schulmeister's that and most remarkable feat was to present himself at .Field-Marshal Mack's. headquarters at Ulm. He posed as a German suspect who had been expelled by the French, and he gained Mack's confidence by fur- nishing him with news, in which the true and the false were skilfully blended. At the critical moment when Mack was hesitating whether ornot to retreat, Schulmeistersent word that Napoleon was returning to France to oppose a British landing. Mack decided to hold firm at Ulm, and a few days later he was forced to capitulate.
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