An  answer  was  promptly  returned  saying  that  the  system  had
been  recently  adopted  by  the  French  Government,  and  that  they
had  felt  themselves  obliged  to  refuse  copies  to  the  Russians
and  other  Continental  governments,  and  closing  with  the  remark
that  “as  his  compatriot  was  admitted  into  the  School  of
Artillery,  he  did  not  think  the  special  privilege  asked  for
necessary.”  Although  General  Labattier,  commander  of  the
School  at  Metz,  construed  the  letter  literally,  other  French
officers  attached  to  the  School,  to  whom  General  Lafayette  had
procured  me  letters  of  introduction,  laughed  at  the  restriction,
and  put  me  in  the  way  of  obtaining  these  drawings  through  the
sous-officiers  of  their  respective  companies ;  these  I  paid  for
their  services  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  liberally  as  my  means
would  permit.  After  getting  possession  of  the  drawings  I  made
the  necessary  memoranda,  and  with  this  material  in  hand,  I


A  UTOBIOGRAPHY.  7J

examined  the  drawings  which  were  in  the  library  of  the
institution,  to  which  I  had  free  access,  till  I  was  satisfied  that  the
drawings  and  memoirs  in  my  possession  were  exact  copies  of
those  in  the  Library.
During  my  year  at  Metz,  I  passed  a  couple  of  weeks  at  the
cavalry  camp  at  Luneville  where  five  thousand  cavalry  were
concentrated  for  instruction,  and  where  I  saw  ten  light  batteries
of  the  new  system  manoeuvering  with  the  light  cavalry,  and
demonstrating  that  there  was  no  ground  over  which  the  light  cav¬
alry  could  operate  where  the  light  batteries  could  not  follow,
thus  proving  the  perfection  of  the  system.
