Memoirs of the Foreign Legion by Maurice Magnus

ON rainy days we had _Revues_. Reviews of the gun, of the room, of the bedstead, of the _accoutrements_, etc. This meant that we had to take the entire gun apart, clean every part of it, and place the different parts on our beds for inspection, or the room had to be thoroughly cleaned, or the bed taken apart, and all bedbugs removed. The sergeant would come first, and then an officer for the inspection. Then we would have theory lessons. We were called into one of the bedrooms, and a Prussian sergeant would give us a lesson. His French was invariably much too abominable to be understood, but no intelligent answer was expected, only a parrot-like reply to the stereotyped question the sergeant found in a book for that purpose; all one had to do was to remember exactly what he had said, and repeat word for word. In fact unless this method was pursued, the sergeant would get very angry and make the soldier repeat word for word as he had said it, if necessary prompting him. He himself did not understand the lessons, so he thought it would be on the safe side to have the answer repeated in this manner. The lessons consisted in learning the names of the parts of the gun, or how to obey orders, or how to salute an officer, or what to do when on guard at night at the approach of a stranger on forbidden ground, or the duties of a soldier when he rises in the morning.

"And what is the next thing you do?" the German sergeant asked, referring to the toilet of a soldier.