Read "Military Sketches" by Emile Gaboriau online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
She may be young or old, dazzlingly pretty or frightfully ugly; in this case looks make no difference, she is ever and always the same. If there is much that is evil in her composition there is quite as much that is good. She is a woman although -- or because -- she is a cantiniere. This much is certain -- she loves the soldier, and is ever ready to do him a service.
It is unnecessary to describe the cantiniere in her glory; that is to say, at the head of her regiment on review days, arrayed in fall uniform, her glazed cap perched jauntily over one ear and her little cask on her back. Every one knows her traditional jacket, coquettish short skirt, trousers with scarlet stripes, and her fantastic boots.