CHAPTER XXIII

THE MILITARY REVIEW

The different troops, assembled for review, were massed on the parade-
ground at Vincennes, facing the tribunes.

In the centre, the artillery brigade, surrounded by two divisions of
infantry, was drawn up in two straight columns, connected by regiments;
each division of infantry, in double columns, was connected by brigades.

These six columns were separated by spaces varying from twenty to twenty-
five metres.

In the background, the cavalry division was lined up in columns; behind
that was its artillery, in the same order of formation.

At a given signal, the troops advanced five hundred metres, and, as soon
as they halted, drums, clarinets and trumpets beat and sounded from all
parts of the field, saluting the arrival of the military governor of
Paris.

This functionary, followed by his staff, in the midst of which group
glittered the brilliant Russian uniform of the aide-decamp General
Leniaeff, rode slowly past the front and the flanks of the massed body,
the troops facing to the left or the right as he passed.

This inspection finished, he took up his stand before the pillars at the
entrance, and the march past began by battalions en masse, in the midst
of the acclamations of numerous spectators who had come to witness this