It was only a year later, when the Duke of Orleans was snatched away, on the very eve of some crowning experiments he was about to make in illustration of the full uses and capacities of this force, that it received the title of Chasseurs d’Orleans, which the modesty of its founder would not tolerate during his lifetime.  This name they gallantly bore through the combats that marked their novitiate in Africa, where it was at once found that the complete preparation of both officers and men made victory comparatively easy for them.  The deadly precision of their aim struck terror into the Arabs, and, as early as 1842, the splendid behavior of the Sixth Battalion in the bloody fights of the Oued Foddah at once ranged the Chasseurs among the finest troops in Africa.  To attempt to follow them step by step in their career would be idle in the space we have here allotted to ourselves.  We shall therefore cite merely a few instances where their courage and efficiency shone with peculiar lustre.

In the course of the year 1845, an impostor, playing upon the credulity of the Arabs, and artfully availing himself of the organization ready furnished by the religious sect to which he belonged, succeeded in bringing about a revolt of a great portion of the tribes in Algiers and Oran.  He went by the title of “Master of the Hour,” a sort of Messiah who had been long expected in that region.  But he was more generally known as Bou-Maza, or The Father with the She-Goat, from the fact that a she-goat was his customary companion, and was supposed by the populace to serve him as a medium of communication with the supernatural Powers.  This man exhibited a great deal of skill and audacity.  His activity was so extraordinary, and he had been seen at so many different points at almost the same time, that his very existence was at first doubted, and many supposed him to be a myth.  At one time it was thought that the insurrection had been quelled, as a chief calling himself Bou-Maza had been captured and shot, when, suddenly, the real leader reappeared among the Flittas, one of the most warlike tribes of Algeria, and living in a region very difficult of access.  Against these and the Prophet, General Bourjolly, the French commander, marched at once, but unfortunately with very inadequate force.  A terrible combat ensued, the Fourth Regiment of the Chasseurs d’Afrique and the Ninth Battalion of the Chasseurs d’Orleans having to sustain the brunt of it.  Both these corps performed prodigies of valor, and it was worth while to hear the men of each reciprocally narrating the glory and the peril of their comrades,—­these telling by what noble exploits the mounted Chasseurs (d’Afrique) had saved the remains of Lieutenant-Colonel Berthier, and the others describing the Chasseurs a Pied, how they stood immovable, although without cartridges, around the body of their commander, Clere, with their terrible sword-bayonets bloody to the hilt!