Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/329

 THE DEATH OE LORD RAGLAN. 299 Amongst the French troops in the Crimea CHAP. XIII. there had chanced to be none whose career L carried back into the thick of the last mighty war ; whilst in each of its eight latter years Lord Raglan, though not greatly older than General Pelissier, had had the good fortune to be not only engaged, but engaged on the Headquarter Staff, and at the side of Wellington.* Accordingly it was in the English commander alone that the French army saw a Chief linking them with the days of the Great Napoleon. They had never been dull to the eloquence of the blue empty sleeve, that told of the wearer's sword-arm lost at Wellington's side, lost even near ' La Haie ' Sainte,' and not far from the moment of moments when ' the bravest of the brave,' Ney himself, was victoriously storming the farm. Yet he who thus recalled to French troops the days of the great war was in no sense what people mean when they speak of a ' veteran.' Not for him — ever busied with present duties — was there time or desire to dwell on the past. With his always sustained animation, his beaming attention to what others said, his prompt, terse reply, his easy grace in the saddle, his ready hand-gallop, he had not only seemed like a man who (for purposes of warlike command) was still in the prime of life, but to have the air of an officer whose habitual activity of body and mind commanders was six years, but in point of activity, Lord Raglan was immensely the younger.
 * The difference of age between the French and English