"Now, it is a well-known fact," concluded M. Maurer, "that the sins of a man who has served his full time in the Legion are wiped off the slate, and I suppose that something like this must have happened in the case of my young friend. I have no doubt that his family restored the money. Anyway, he attained his rehabilitation. He is the bearer of a very well-known name, and to-day occupies an important--a _very_ important--post in public affairs in England."
Another little romance revolving round the life of a legionary, whose birth was enveloped in mystery, was told some years ago by a British soldier who served in the Legion. After an engagement at Cao-Thuong, there was found on one of the dead, sewn in a belt, six British war medals and a letter addressed to the narrator. Judge of his surprise when he found that it was in perfect English, of which he had never for a moment suspected his comrade-in-arms had a knowledge, and that it contained the statement that the medals had been won by the writer's father and grandfather in India. His mother, the writer explained, was a native, and therefore he, as a Eurasian, although born in wedlock, was ineligible for the British Army. As his tastes were wholly military, and the greatest desire of his life was to add to his forebears' collection of medals, he had enlisted in the Legion.
The mental attitude of the man who regards the Foreign Legion as a _pis aller_ is a common trait among its members; it is often, indeed, the last resource of those who have met with life's disappointments.
There was once an officer of the German army who had invented a new type of cannon, and could not get its merits recognised, either by his own country or by France, as rapidly as he would have liked, or receive prompt remuneration for his work. Straightway, therefore, he went and joined the Légion Etrangère. Some little time later, in 1895, the French authorities, waking up to the possibility of the value of the work of so eminent an engineer, approached him on the subject, but by then he had become thoroughly soured. He declined to have anything to do with them, and with the air of one whose genius has been recognised too late hastily returned to his kitchen, where he had long carried out the duties of regimental cook.