“Now, prepare,” said the Count, “for a sight, perhaps not altogether so soldierlike, but fully as much to my taste, as the buff-belt and grenadiers’-cap formality of the line.  You shall see the Austrian flankers—­every corps equipped after its native fashion.  And whatever our martinets may say, there is nothing that gives such spirits to the soldier, as dressing according to the style of his own country.  My early service was in Transylvania; and if I were to choose troops for a desperate service, I say—­give me either the man of the hill, or the man of the forest, exactly in the coat of the chamois-shooter, or the wolf-hunter.”

He had scarcely pointed my attention to the movement, when the whole body of the rearguard was in full and rapid advance.  The plain was literally covered with those irregulars, who swept on like a surge, or rather, from the diversity of their colours, and the vast half-circle which they formed on the ground, a living rainbow.  Part were infantry and part cavalry, but they were so intermingled, and the motion of all was so rapid, that it was difficult to mark the distinction.  From my recollection of the history of the Seven Years’ War, I felt a double interest in the sight of the different castes and classes of the service, which I had hitherto known only by name.  Thus passed before me the famous Croatian companies—­the Pandours, together forming the finest outpost troops of the army—­the free companies of the Tyrol, the first marksmen of the empire, a fine athletic race, with the eagle’s feather in their broad hats, and the sinewy step of the mountaineer—­the lancers of the Bannat, first-rate videttes, an Albanian division, which had taken service with Austria on the close of the war; and, independently of all name and order, a cloud of wild cavalry, Turk, Christian, and barbarian, who followed the campaign for its chances, and galloped, sported, and charged each other like the Arabs of the desert.

The late triumphs of the Imperial arms in Turkey had even enhanced the customary display, and the standards of the cavalry and colours of the battalions, were stiff with the embroidered titles of captured fortresses and conquered fields.  Turkish instruments of music figured among the troops, and the captive horse-tails were conspicuous in more than one corps, which had plucked down the pride of the Moslem.  The richness and variety of this extraordinary spectacle struck me as so perfectly Oriental, that I might have imagined myself suddenly transferred to Asia, and looked for the pasha and his spahis; or even for the rajah, his elephants, and his turbaned spearmen.  But all this gay splendour has long since been changed.  The Croats are now regulars, and all the rest have followed their example.

My admiration was so loud, that it caught the ear of the duke.  He turned his quick countenance on me, and said—­“Tell our friends at home, M. Marston, what you have seen to-day.  I presume you know that Maria Theresa was a first-rate soldier; or, at least, she had the happy art of finding them.  You may see Laudohn’s hand in her battalions.  As for the light troops, Europe can show nothing superior in their kind.  Trenk’s Pandours, and Nadasti’s hussars were worth an army to Austria, from the first Silesian war down to the last shot fired in Germany.  But follow me, and you shall see the work of another great master.”