Seeing the Emperor’s eyes glisten and snorting in contempt, Guy de Beauharne, the French ‘military advisor’ (mole inside new Vietnamese army to check they were being good little boys) to Vietnam, cleared his throat loudly. What he saw passing by him from this parade stand in this stinking city was ten thousand unwashed, barely trained scruffy gooks whose only value was that they were sitting in the country so the French army could do something useful like crushing that upstart Austrian corporal’s mad skull in. He chose not to voice his opinion, instead remarking to the Emperor ‘Quite a force you have put together here Your Majesty. I trust they have been arranged as specified, for garrison duties?’
The emperor hid a private, satisfied smile of one who knows more than he is letting on. ‘Of course Monsieur General, what else. We Vietnamese value our friendship with France and are grateful for being allowed to defend ourselves. We would not ruin that with any silliness.’ He could have charmed the baby birds out of the trees – the Frenchman nodded stiffly and muttered ‘I should hope so Sir’ in apparent satisfaction. He would of course be inspecting very closely the composition and organisation of this garrison division of theirs, to check it wasn’t going to be going walkabout any time soon. Having had enough of the endless parade of marching men, he stalked off into the city.