42 THE EMPEROR'S BREASTPLATES. chap, who found means to compass his fall. Be that ' as it may, he was visited by treatment which, in the absence of any more knowledge than I on this subject possess, must seem unaccountably harsh. Deposed from the command of his Corps d'Arm^e, he was relegated to the command of a single division forming part of Canrobert's forces, and being also refused permission to retire from active service, he was thus, as it were, kept picketed under the eyes of that army which had seen him put down from the higher to the lower place. It was only after some lapse of time that the treatment of the General was softened by appointing him to the governorship of Oran. The French The French Emperor in this month of Feb- piates. ruary gave actual, physical effect to what modern soldiers regard as a fanciful notion. The bet- ter to enable his soldiers before Sebastopol to carry defences by storm, he sent out to them 4000 breastplates* Of these, 3000 were divided equally between the 1st and 2d Corps d'Arm^e, but were never used ; and — alive to what they call ' a Kidicule ' — the French, as they expressed it, advised themselves to ' maintain on this deli- ' cate subject a prudent silence.'! on the part Under the directions of Lieutenant Stopford of English. the Eoyal Engineers, our people in the beginning of December constructed an electric field -tele- tfjiegraph. graph ; I and it was towards the close of the
- Vaillant, Minister of War, to Canrobert, Feb. 3, 1855.
Quoted by Rousset, vol. ii. p. 23. t Ibid., p. 24. J Journal of Royal Engineers, p. 66.
