1st. Figures showing that, in point of numbers, the army of Great Britain is to that of France, in the proportion of rather less than an inch to a yard.

2nd. Facts showing the superior military education of the army of France as compared with that of the army of Great Britain,—every eye is averted from the figures, every ear is hermetically closed against the facts! And thus, while every item of property within the British dominions is, as it is termed, "ensured from loss," the kingdom itself, almost by acclamation, is allowed, day after day, month after month, and year after year, to exist unprotected, save by that Almighty Power by which it has hi therto been maintained.

LA GRANDE CHAUMIÈRE.

IN Galignani's detailed account of the variety of balls which in every quarter of Paris are to be found suited to all classes of society, I read as follows:

"Grande Chaumière, No. 96, Boulevart du Mont Parnasse, is the habitual resort of students and étudiantes, a title familiarly given to those members of the softer sex who worship Minerva under the garb of her youthful followers of the Quartier Latin. The garden of the Chaumière is laid out in shady walks

'Time out of mind the favourite haunts of love.'

The dancing here is rather more lively than at the place already described, and might possibly elicit an austere shake of the head of a sombre moralist, who might also think the walks above alluded to somewhat too shady."

"Where am I to conduct you?" turning himself round on his box to receive my orders, said the countenance, but not the lips, of the driver of a citadine in which I had all of a sudden seated myself at nine o'clock at night.

"A la Grande Chaumière !" I replied.

"Très-bien, Monsieur!" said the man, who, suiting, as he thought, his action to the word, gave the poor horse a hard cut with his whip.

We went I hardly knew where, turning and twisting for about half an hour; at last, when close to the Barrière d'Enfer, the carriage stopped, and I was informed we had arrived at the point of my destination.

As soon as I had paid my driver I saw before me, illuminated with lamps, two lodges, at one of which I was required, as usual, to leave my stick, and at the other, before which a sentinel was pacing, to pay a trifle for admission.

These preliminaries having been concluded, I walked slowly along a broad sanded path, lighted by variegated lamps, and bounded on each side. by great cubical green wooden boxes, containing very large orange-trees. As I proceeded I heard before me a band playing, and occasionally a strange rumbling noise like thunder. On my right I indistinctly saw the figures of several people, principally ladies, joyously whirling in a circle on whirligig horses; at last, after passing under a bower, I came all at once on the grand esplanade, on which, under the canopy of heaven, in an open-air ball-room, beneath a magnificent chandelier of thirty large cut-glass lamps, with fifteen more of the same form round the VOL. II.

magic circle, I perceived the heads of about thirty or forty couple of happy people, waltzing in time to a band of fourteen instruments seated on an elevated covered platform, sheltered by a boarded roof through which passed the stems of two large umbrageous trees, besides which, by other trees the remainder of the esplanade was also overshadowed.

Around the railing which enclosed the dancers were seated in chairs a crowd of young people, more or less hot, who had either taken part in the dance or were waiting to do so, also a number of colder and older ones acting the part only of spectators. At each end of the dancing ellipse there stood erect, in uniform, low cocked hat, and a straight sword, pointing like a lightning conductor to the ground, a sergent de ville attentively watching, by order of the police, the movements of the dancers. On the outside of the persons seated in chairs, sauntering, talking, and listening to the music, was a moving crowd, among whom were conspicuous the white belts, shining swordhandles, and scarlet epaulettes of several soldiers.

Immediately facing the band, and on the left of the entrance, there appeared, surrounded by a border full of pots containing beautiful flowers, an elevated refreshment platform, brilliantly

lighted and full of tables, from which people, luxuriously sipping coffee, punch, lemonade, &c., were looking, over the heads of the walking and sitting company, at the young, dancing beneath lamps and the green branches of horse- chesnut trees in flower. As they sat, the mysterious rumbling sound, occasionally for a moment overpowered, and then dying away, harmoniously blended with the music.

Whenever the dancing, merely to give a short interval of rest to the players, suddenly ceased, everybody appeared instinctively to stroll into a labyrinth of little intricate dark paths, shaded by trees and bounded by perpendicular embankments about two feet high. Here and there, like angels' visits, "few and far between," there twinkled, rather than shone, a little lamp. Here and there was ingeniously carved out of the happy chaos a small dark circular space, containing sometimes two or three plain, unassuming rush-bottomed stools, for people to sit and talk on, and sometimes, in addition to these simple luxuries, a little table. In this chiaroscuro picture there was occasionally a sort of dreamy appearance of waiters, in white aprons, hurrying forwards with white coffee-cups in trays.

As I happened not to be wearing a gold-edged cocked hat, gaudy epaulettes, shining buttons,