Memoirs of the Foreign Legion by Maurice Magnus

THE third day after sending my telegram to Bel-Abbès I received an answer: "Apply to military commander Tunis." It took me an entire day to find the military commander, for I was sent from one end of the town to the other and back again, as the various offices are distributed all over Tunis. Finally I found out that I must apply to the recruiting office, in the first instance, to undergo a medical examination.

At the recruiting office, which consisted of two or three back rooms up a dismal flight of stairs, I waited two days in succession, until I was able to see the sergeant in charge --a caricature who looked as if he had stepped out of _Le Rire_. He took my name and address and asked me if I had papers; I said I had, and showed them. Later I found out that to enter the Legion no papers are ever asked, in fact they are not supposed to be asked. He told me that if I wanted to become a French subject, I could do so, and thus enter any French regiment, whereas as long as I remained a foreigner I should have to stay in the Legion. I thought of my friend Paul S----, who was a naturalized French citizen, had fought at the front during the early days of the war until his health gave out, and who, by a retrospective law made in 1915, was denaturalized and treated as an enemy because he happened to be naturalized a few days after a certain date in 1913 mentioned by the law. He was born in Dresden, had lived in France ever since, was quite a young fellow, and as loyal a Frenchman as I ever met. The day might come when America would go to war with France. I preferred to remain an American. The day following I came for my medical examination, and waited about two hours and a half until the military doctor came. I had to strip and wait in that condition, with bare feet on an icy cold stone floor of the unheated back room, for another half-hour until the doctor could see me. He looked at my eyes, listened to the breathing of my chest, made me walk a few steps backwards and forwards, and it was over. I could dress, and got a slip with which I was to report to another office. That doctor was my first experience of being looked at askance. I did not know then why he looked at me in that strange way; I did not understand the look until I was in the Legion.