Among its officers was Thomas Alexandre Dumas, the novelist's father, one of St. Georges's two lieutenant colonels. Colonel St. Georges found it difficult to obtain the funds allocated to his unit towards equipment and horses badly needed by his regiment. With a number of green recruits still on foot, it took his Legion three days to reach its training camp in Laon. In February, when Jean-Nicolas Pache, the minister of war, ordered St. Georges to take his regiment to Lille and hence to the front, he protested that, "Short of horses, equipment and officers, I cannot lead my men to be slaughtered ...without a chance to teach them to tell their left from their right."