Some of the American weapons were even worse than ours. As for
the boots, they often had mere "composition soles," which were soon worn
out. I saw, notably after the battle of Le Mans, hundreds--I believe I
might say, without, exaggeration, thousands--of men whose boots were mere
remnants. Some hobbled through the snow with only rags wrapped round their
bleeding feet. On the other hand, a few of our firms undoubtedly supplied
satisfactory boots, and it may have been so in the case of the traveller
whom I met at Rennes.
A few days after my return to Saint Malo, my cousin, Montague Vizetelly,
arrived there with a commission from the _Daily News_ to join Chanzy's
forces at Le Mans. Mr. Robinson, I was afterwards told, had put some
questions about me to my brother Adrian, and, on hearing how young I was,
had thought that I might not be equal to the occasion if a decisive battle
between Prince Frederick Charles and Chanzy should be fought. My cousin--
then four-and-twenty years of age--was accordingly sent over. From that
time nearly all my war letters were forwarded to the _Pall Mall Gazette_,
and, as it happened, one of them was the first account of the great battle
of Le Mans, from the French side, to appear in an English paper.
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