Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/233

 THE DEATH OF GENERAL BIZOT. 201 nature.* The French army had always held chap. Bizot to be a man of genuine worth.t Disloyally 1_ treated, and weakened by his Emperor's self-seek- ing intrigue, he still was so true a soldier that he did not allow himself to become at all soured by the overshadowing presence of Niel, and went on thinking only of duty, duty, duty. From the counsel we heard Bizot giving on the 10th of March, it may well be inferred that he had not been then made a sharer of the ugly design set on foot for keeping a French army tethered in the enemy's presence ; and those who respect his memory may hope to remain in the faith that even down to his death he stood apart, free from the stain of having been ever initiated in any such ignoble mysteries. An abrupt disinterment of words confidentially written has indeed com- pelled us to see that in February — when still the ' Winter Troubles ' were rife — General Bizot could find heart to sneer at the ' indolence ' of the English, whose only real fault, as we know, was that of being so few ;{ but already we have learnt how that perilous want of numbers was masked by the noble demeanour of our suffering army, and may therefore forgive a French officer who imagined that its semblance of strength im- plied a power of adding to its daily allotment of work. If acquainted with our dread ' Morning t Lord Raglan to Lord Panmure, 17th April 1855. J M. Rousset, vol. ii. p. 32, prints the words in which Bizot (writing to the French Minister of War) speaks of Niel's having ' tried in vain to galvanise their indolence. '
 * Niel, p. 199.