Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/257

With these names I have exhausted the list of the principal foreign adventurers who built up the armies of Holkar and Sindia between 1787 and 1803. It is true that many more names remain on the list, but not one that calls for sympathy or interest. This is my own conviction formed upon a minute examination of every paper of that period upon which I have been able to lay my hand. How far that conviction is borne out by contemporary opinion may be gathered from the following sentence culled from Major Smith's work already quoted. "Perron's army," wrote that gentleman in 1805, "was a minute miniature of the French revolution. Wretches were raised from cooks, bakers, and barbers, to majors and colonels, absurdly entrusted with the command of brigades, and shoved into paths to acquire lakhs. This was the quintessence of égalité, and the acmé of the French revolution." Even if Major Smith's description be exaggerated, this at least is certain, that of all the men to whom I have referred, but one only, de Boigne, was worthy of representing France. He was worthy; and there was another, Raymond, whose deeds have yet to be recorded, who at least rivals him in the esteem which living, he earned; which, dead, is still not denied him.