husband's life she had saved. The maréchale's coachman having been taken ill suddenly one day, and the doctor having ordered a remedy, the application of which necessitated the use of an appliance rarely seen in France nowadays, except on the stage of the ComédieFrançaise when they play "Le Malade Imaginaire," the maréchale caught up the instrument with a will, and, in spite of the patient's objections, performed the operation. "What's the use of this?" she asked, pointing to a bookcase in her new domicile. The upholsterer told her. "Then it's of no use here," was the answer. "My husband is no liseur and I'm no lisarde (she meant liseuse), so you can take it away. Stay!" she said in another moment, "leave it where it is; it'll do to put fruit in."

One might fill a volume with anecdotes about the Duchesse de Dantzic's good-natured but decidedly unconventional behaviour; nevertheless, she was not the real Madame Sans-Gêne of history; that title belongs by right and prescription to a woman not less admirable in her kindness to everyone around her than was the maréchale, but cast in a more heroic mould. To find the counterparts of Thérèse Sutter, née Figueur, alias Madame Sans-Gêne, we would have to search the golden records of woman's bravery on the battlefield. Madame Lefebvre ranks with the oddities of her sex, Thérèse Figueur stands in the front rank of the world's heroines, with the Grace Darlings, the Kenau Hasselaars, the Louise Labés, the Pustawoitows, the Hannah Snells, the women of Fritzlar in their most serious mood, the women of Weinsberg and of Wärend in Sweden. General Marbot, in his "Mémoires," gives us a glimpse of Thérèse, though not an absolutely correct one. Speaking of the wife of Marshal Augereau, he writes: "This excellent woman, who was always ailing, led a very secluded life, and rarely appeared at table or in her drawing-room; but when she did appear, she made it a point to encourage rather than to check our mirth and gaiety. She had two most extraordinary lady companions. The one was always dressed in man's clothes, and was known by the name of 'Sans-Gêne.' She was the daughter of one of the chiefs, who, in 1793, defended Lyons against the soldiers of the Convention. She managed to make her escape in company with her father. They disguised themselves as soldiers and took refuge in the 9th regiment of dragoons, where they adopted another name, under which they served throughout the campaign. Mdlle. Sans-Gêne, who, added to her manly gait, carriage

and appearance, had also the courage of a man, was wounded several times, notably at Castiglione, where her regiment formed part of the division under Augereau. General Bonaparte, who had been a frequent eye-witness of that fearless woman's bravery, induced her to accept a position near his wife after he became First Consul, but the atmosphere of the Court did not suit Mdlle. Sans-Gêne. She parted company with Madame Bonaparte, who, by common consent, handed her over to Madame Augereau, whose secretary and reader she became."

For Thérèse Figueur was by no means an uneducated woman. In 1842 she wrote her own memoirs, to which I am indebted for some facts in this paper. Apart from the evidence of General Marbot, as quoted above, the main facts are vouched for by three or four other generals and as many marshals.

From these memoirs it would appear that Marbot made a slight mistake in saying that Thérèse's father was a leader of the Lyons insurrection of 1793; Pierre Figueur had at that period been dead for nearly ten years, and Thérèse's mother had been dead for more than eighteen years, she having died, in fact, while giving her birth. Pierre Figueur married a second time, and the child, by her own confession, was not happy with her step-mother; so, at her father's death, one of her uncles on the mother's side probably-took her away, and later on apprenticed her to a draper or cloth merchant at Avignon.

They were living there together in 1793 when that city rose against the Convention, in consequence of the latter's proscription of the Girondins. It was then that her uncle, fighting on the side of the Federalists of Avignon, who contemplated a union with those of Lyons, suggested her adopting the dress of a gunner, in order that she might accompany him with greater safety everywhere, and especially through the campaign on which he thought he was entering. That campaign was nipped in the bud, however, by the defeat of the Avignon Federalists in their first engagement, during which Thérèse and her uncle were taken prisoners. General Carteaux treated the uncle and niece very kindly, complimented them on their courage, and recommended them to enlist in the regular army. Carteaux appears to have been perfectly cognisant of the sex of the younger of the two prisoners, and the girl herself expressed no surprise at the strangeness of the proposition. We are, in fact, on the eve of an entirely new era in the matter of military recruitment, for by the time Waterloo has been fought there are something like a dozen female soldiers in the

Napoleonic armies, and one of these warriors-the one who pays for her heroism with her life, Mme. Poncet, alias "Breton-Double ❞—has risen to the rank of sergeant-quartermaster.

From that moment Thérèse Figueur is a trooper before all things, for she and her uncle chose a cavalry regiment, she being as much at home in the saddle as he, owing to her early training with her father, who was a wholesale corn dealer, and who had always a dozen horses in his stable. "Then came the question of choosing a nom de guerre," she writes, "and after a short discussion we settled on that of Sans-Gêne, which had been proposed by Sub-Lieutenant Chastel." “I can assure you," he said, "that when we took her prisoner she did not stand upon ceremony with us (elle ne se gênait pas). She kept shrieking that we were a pack of cowards."

And thus, on the 9th July, 1793, Thérèse Figueur is changed into trooper Sans-Gêne of the mounted rifles of the Allobrogian Legion.* Shortly after, the inhabitants of Marseille treat her to an ovation, and in a little while she becomes a favourite with the whole of the corps, notably with General Dugommier, the Commander-in-Chief, who frequently tells her off for duty at headquarters. One day, before Toulon, she is sent with an order to a neighbouring post. On her way back, she is tempted to stop for a moment at one of the canteens improvised by Sergeant Junot, to partake of a slice of mutton. No sooner has she entered headquarters than she happens to run against the officer who had given her the order to transmit. "It ought to have taken you three-quarters of an hour to go there and back again,” he said quietly, looking at his watch. "You have been an hour and ten minutes. A la garde du camp." The garde du camp is the guardroom when the troops are under canvas. Sans-Gêne might have pleaded that she only stopped on her way home, and after she had delivered the order; that the troops were resting, and that there was no fighting going on. She did not say a word, and simply turned on her heel to obey orders. Four hours later she was set free by the son of General Dugommier, who had interceded with his fellow officer for her. The latter had consented to overlook the matter. SansGêne herself, however, was not so easily appeased. In those early days of Republican equality, a private was often invited to dine with his officers, and Sans-Gêne seems to have been invited more often

*Allobroges, one of the ancient Gallic races dwelling on the territory between the Rhone and the Isère.

than any other private. At the next gathering, the officers of the regiment who had heard what had occurred, tried to incense SansGêne against the too rigid disciplinarian, and to a certain extent succeeded. Sans-Gêne told him plainly that he had been too severe with her for a mere trifle, chaffed him about his ugliness, and called him a blackamoor. The officer pretended to be very contrite, and took the chaff good-naturedly. The officer's name was Bonaparte.

Seven years elapse during which Sans-Gêne's career is full of adventures. At Castres, where she is quartered with the 15th dragoons, into which she had exchanged after having been wounded before Toulon, she is accused of having "seriously compromised," to put it mildly, according to the girl's father, a young girl belonging to a good family. Sans-Gêne has paid his daughter too much attention. The result of such a complaint to the colonel of the regiment, who, like all Sans-Gêne's comrades, is aware of her sex, may be imagined. Here is the companion picture. An adjutant-general, who has seen her at work on the battlefield, concludes-probably erroneously-that she will make an admirable wife, and offers her his hand and heart. Sans-Gêne, who cherishes a deep-seated affection for a companion of her youth, Clément Sutter, who will eventually become her husband, declines the adjutant's offer, but finally, at the instance of her fellowsoldiers, accepts it. The bride and bridegroom, both in uniform, repair to the Mairie to have the nuptial knot tied. "Before I proceed," remarks the maire, who sees the opportunity for making a cheap joke, "I wish to know which of the two parties is the bride." As a matter of course, the joke provokes a titter from those around; Sans-Gêne is disgusted and stalks out of the room, "a private still," as the Irish ditty has it.

In Spain she saves the life of General Nouguez on the battlefield, and rescues from drowning two of her fellow-soldiers. During the campaign she has two horses killed under her. In Italy, whither she is sent at the conclusion of the war with Spain, she continues to look after the lives of others rather than protect her own. On one occasion, having tarried too long at the hospital of Busca to look after a carabineer whom she had taken thither, she fell into the hands of a squad of Austrian hussars. They took her horse. Nevertheless, after a few hours, she managed to make her escape into the house of the Comte Belin, a French emigré, but an emigré who happened to

be in sympathy with the then prevalent French idea of resentment against foreign interference in French affairs. This was not always. the case, as will be seen directly, and Sans-Gêne herself had not a very exalted opinion of her countrymen who were fighting in the ranks of France's enemies, although she had tried to save the lives of some of these in Spain, simply because they were her countrymen. In one instance she was rewarded for her generosity by an attempt on her own life. However, we may take it that when flying from the Austrian soldiers. she was not aware whose house she was entering, and the Comte Belin and his wife proved very kind to her. They hid away her uniform, and provided her with a dress more suitable to her sex. That same evening, at dinner, she finds herself seated opposite some of the soldiers of the Legion de Bussy, emigrés to a man, who, elated at their success of that and the previous days, boastfully assert that they mean to make short work of the Republican scum, and intend to bring France to her right senses. Sans-Gêne sits quiet for a little while, but at last, unable to contain herself, she bursts out: "You are taking a very high tone, because you have the whole of Europe at your back. You talk of scum. I am of opinion that the scum are those who fight against their own country. But the Republic happens not to care a d-- for you or for Europe; and I who am speaking to you, though but a woman, if one of you will lend me a sabre, I will undertake to bring the least cowardly among you to reason in a very short while."

Of course the emigrés look at one another, and their hostess begins to explain affairs, but Sans-Gêne barely leaves her time. "Yes, gentlemen," she says, “I am French, a citoyenne, and what is better still, a dragoon of the Republic. Personally, I have not a moment's hesitation in telling you all this, but if you are the honourable men I take you to be, you will consider the position of those who have given me shelter. They took no thought for anything but for the woman who claimed their aid. They had no idea that I was a real soldier, and I would never forgive myself if the fact of my taking shelter with them should cause them any trouble."

The emigrés, somewhat tardily, perhaps, remembered that they also were Frenchmen. They gave their word not to betray the secret and complimented their host and hostess on having saved such a prisoner from the Austrians. Then they asked Sans-Gêne to tell them the story of her life, and drank to her health. Towards the end of the