616 A Day at the Camp of St Omer. [DEC. 



bridge, or defile at which he first or last distinguished himself. Another, 

 still less restricted in his notions of the achievements that merit immortality, 

 raises a pillar bearing the name (utterly unknown or unremembered but by 

 himself) of the village, or wood, or way-side, where he first heard an 

 enemy's bullet whiz by him, without being moved by it more than a pass- 

 ing panic ! Others display at once their politics and their poetical genius, 

 in loyal couplets or quartains. If we are to believe the inscriptions to be 

 met with at the Camp of Saint Omer, there never was a race so " be- 

 loved," and "desired" as the Bourbons never any at once so great, so 

 gracious, and so good and never even a Bourbon so "beloved," "desired," 

 great, good, gracious, and what not, as that particular Bourbon who now 

 lills the throne of his ancestors : neither was there ever so loyal a race of 

 subjects as the present military, who serve and honour him ! The truth is, 

 Frenchmen have an instinctive love for kings, whether of the Bourbon or 

 the Buonaparte class; and a most lively ingenuity in contriving to connect 

 themselves with the objects of their admiration. " Un serjeant du 6e. 

 Regt. de la ligne rend homage au petit-fils d' Henri IV." Such is the 

 mode in whi^li their amiable self-love contrives to place its happy possessor 

 in imaginary contact with two kings at a time. 



The various devices, &c. which w r e have glanced at above, form the 

 private ornaments of the camp of St. Omer, and if not so imposing as the 

 public ones, they may be regarded as much more curious and worthy of 

 notice, because they are spontaneous and sincere. The official ones con- 

 sist of a nearly similar set of objects; namely, trophies, pillars, triumphal 

 arches, busts, medallions, miniature gardens, &c. one or other of these occu- 

 pying the, centre of the front of each division of the lines of tents, or each 

 street as they are called. Of these streets there are an immense number, 

 running from end to end of each grand division of the encampment, and 

 again at right angles, from the front to the rear ; so that the scope for the 

 display of taste and ingenuity, united with patriotism and loyalty, is suffi- 

 cient to satisfy, if not to exhaust, even French enthusiasm, in these parti- 

 culars. And, to say truth, the results are, (in detail at least) sufficiently 

 puerile and affected. But assuredly they are ten times better, both in their 

 source and their effect, than that which would take their place in an 

 English encampment. There, as here, every required duty would be well 

 performed ; and perhaps from the same feeling, namely, that they must 

 be so performed. But beyond this, all would be drinking, brawling, and 

 blackguardism. 



Passing into the body of the camp, (down the centre avenue, for in- 

 stance,) we presently come upon a line of erections, not tents, but little 

 open hovels, solidly built, arid forming the kitchens of the camp each line 

 of tents, from front to rear, having one allotted to it. In the rear of these 

 are about as many tents as in the front, the rearmost one being of a different 

 form from the rest oblong, instead of conical and allotted to the officer 

 of the line of tents reaching from thence to the front. 



Passing from this division of the camp, towards the left, we find it sepa- 

 rated from the other divisions by a wide space, (where the windmill stands), 

 which is occupied by the caissons of the artillery, by which the camp is 

 fortified at every approachable point of the hill ; each point having a fort of 

 turf, mounting one cannon, and these forts extending all along the open 

 brow of the hill. Boyond the windmill is a second, and beyond that a 

 third division, answering in extent, and in most other details, to that de- 

 scribed above. 



