When I first saw him in the latter days of 1870, he was in his
fifty-eighth year, well built, and taller than the majority of French
officers. His fair hair and fair moustache had become grey; but his blue
eyes had remained bright, and there was an expression of quiet resolution
on his handsome, well-cut face, with its aquiline nose and energetic jaw.
Such, physically, was the general whom Moltke subsequently declared to
have been the best that France opposed to the Germans throughout the war.
I never once saw Chanzy excited, in which respect he greatly contrasted
with many of the subordinate commanders. Jaureguiberry was sometimes
carried away by his Basque, and Gougeard by his Celtic, blood. So it was
with Jaures, who, though born in Paris, had, like his nephew the Socialist
leader, the blood of the Midi in his veins. Chanzy, however, belonged to a
calmer, a more quietly resolute northern race.
He was inclined to religion, and I remember that, in addition to the
chaplains accompanying the Breton battalions, there was a chief chaplain
attached to the general staff. This was Abbe de Beuvron, a member of
an old noble family of central France.
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