a detachment from the Royal Navy. The procedure of burying ashes in an urn was still unfamiliar at the time, and it was transported in a coffin during the funeral ceremonies. An estimated 7,000 people, including many veterans of the retreat from Mons, filed past the coffin during the first two hours it lay in state before the funeral. Haig, Robertson, Hamilton and Smith-Dorrien (who had travelled from France to pay his respects to a man with whom he had clashed badly) were pall bearers at the funeral at Westminster Abbey – the first of a major First World War leader. The ashes were buried in a private service in the graveyard of St. Mary the Virgin Church at Ripple, Kent, five days after his death. Assessments Contemporaries French was "a man about whom there were extremes of opinion, ranging from loyalty and affection to disgust". He had a hot temper and swings of mood, would address friends effusively as "dear old boy", and was a womaniser and often short of money. He wore an unusually long tunic which emphasised his relatively short stature. He was—at least during the Boer War—idolised by the public and during the First World War was loved by his men in a way that Douglas Haig never was. French was also an avid reader of Dickens, from whose works he was able to recite long passages from memory. Opinions vary as to French's military abilities. Edward Spears, then a subaltern liaising between French and Lanrezac, later wrote of the former: "You only had to look at him to see that he was a brave, determined man ... I learnt to love and to admire the man who never lost his head, and on whom danger had the effect it has on the wild boar: he would become morose, furious for a time, harsh, but he would face up and never shirk. He knew only one way of dealing with a difficulty, and that was to tackle it ... If he had once lost confidence in a man, justly or unjustly, that man could do no right in his eyes. He was as bad an enemy as he was a good friend ... once he had lost confidence in (Lanrezac) he ignored him and acted as if he and his Army did not exist." Spears also recorded that at a conference with Joffre on 30 August