tempest without firing a shot; without any action to stir their blood or excite their spirits. Death thinned their ranks, but could not shake their souls.

A beautiful instance of the quick and generous impulses to which the French are prone, is given in the case of a French cavalier, in the hottest of the action, charging furiously upon a British officer, but perceiving in the moment of assault that his adversary had lost his sword-arm, dropping the point of his sabre, and courteously riding on. Peace be with that generous warrior, whatever were his fate! If he went down in the storm of battle, with the foundering fortunes of his chieftain, may the turf of Waterloo grow green above his grave! and happier far would be the fate of such a spirit, to sink amidst the tempest, unconscious of defeat, than to survive, and mourn over the blighted laurels of his country.

In this way the two armies fought through a long and bloody day. The French with enthusiastic valour, the English with cool, inflexible courage, until fate, as if to leave the question of superiority still undecided between two such adversaries, brought up the Prussians to decide the fortunesof the field.

It was several years afterward that I visited the field of Waterloo. The ploughshare had been busy with its oblivious labours, and the frequent harvest had nearly obliterated the vestiges of war. Still the blackened ruins of Hougoumont stood, a monumental pile, to mark the violence of this vehement struggle. Its broken walls, pierced by bullets, and shattered by explosions, showed the deadly strife that had taken place within; when Gaul and Britain, hemmed in between narrow walls, hand to hand and foot to foot, fought from garden to courtyard, from courtyard to chamber, with intense and concentrated rivalship. Columns of smoke towered from this vortex of battle as from a volcano; "it was," said my guide, "like a little hell upon earth." Not far off, two or three broad spots of rank, unwholesome green still marked the places where these rival warriors, after their fierce and fitful struggle, slept quietly together in the lap of their common mother earth. Over all the rest of the field peace had resumed its sway. The thoughtless whistle of the peasant floated on the air, instead of the trumpet's clangour; the team slowly laboured up the hill-side, once shaken by the hoofs of rushing squadrons; and wide fields of corn waved peacefully over the soldiers' graves, as summer seas dimple over the place where many a tall ship lies buried.

To the foregoing desultory notes on the French military character, let me append a few traits which I picked up verbally

in one of the French provinces. They may have already appeared in print, but I have never met with them.

At the breaking out of the Revolution, when so many of the old families emigrated, a descendant of the great Turenne, by the name of De Latour d'Auvergne, refused to accompany his relations, and entered into the Republican army. He served in all the campaigns of the Revolution, distinguished himself by his valour, his accomplishments, and his generous spirit, and might have risen to fortune and to the highest honours. He refused, however, all rank in the army above that of captain, and would receive no recompence for his achievements but a sword of honour. Napoleon, in testimony of his merits, gave him the title of Premier Grenadier de France (First Grenadier of France), which was the only title he would ever bear. He was killed in Germany, at the battle of Neuburg. To honour his memory, his place was always retained in his regiment, as if he still occupied it; and whenever the regiment was mustered, and the name of De Latour d'Auvergne was called out, the reply was, "Dead on the field of honour!"

PARIS AT THE RESTORATION.

PARIS presented a singular aspect just after the downfall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons. It was filled with a restless, roaming population; a dark, sallow race, with fierce moustaches, black cravats, and feverish, menacing looks; men suddenly thrown out of employ by the return of peace; officers cut short in their career, and cast loose with scanty means, many of them in utter indigence, upon the world; the broken elements of armies. They haunted the places of public resort, like restless, unhappy spirits, taking no pleasure; hanging about like lowering clouds that linger after a storm, and giving a singular air of gloom to this otherwise gay metropolis.

The vaunted courtesy of the old school, the smooth urbanity that prevailed in former days of settled government and longestablished aristocracy, had disappeared amidst the savage republicanism of the Revolution and the military furor of the empire. Recent reverses had stung the national vanity to the quick; and English travellers, who crowded to Paris on the return of peace, expecting to meet with a gay, goodhumoured, complaisant populace, such as existed in the time of the" Sentimental Journey," were surprised at finding them irritable and fractious, quick at fancying affronts, and not

unapt to offer insults. They accordingly inveighed with heat and bitterness at the rudeness they experienced in the French metropolis; yet what better had they to expect? Had Charles II. been reinstated in his kingdom by the valour of French troops; had he been wheeled triumphantly to London over the trampled bodies and trampled standards of England's bravest sons; had a French general dictated to the English capital, and a French army been quartered in Hyde Park; had Paris poured forth its motley population, and the wealthy bourgeoisie of every French trading town swarmed to London, crowding its squares, filling its streets with their equipages, thronging its fashionable hotels and places of amusement, elbowing its impoverished nobility out of their palaces and opera-boxes, and looking down on the humiliated inhabitants as a conquered people;-in such a reverse of the case, what degree of courtesy would the populace of London have been apt to exercise toward their visitors ?*

On the contrary, I have always admired the degree of magnanimity exhibited by the French on the occupation of their capital by the English. When we consider the military ambition of this nation; its love of glory; the splendid height to which its renown in arms had recently been carried, and with these, the tremendous reverses it had just undergone; its armies shattered, annihilated; its capital captured, garrisoned, and overrun—and that, too, by its ancient rivals, the English, towards whom it had cherished for centuries a jealous and almost religious hostility; could we have wondered if the tiger spirit of this fiery people had broken out in bloody feuds and deadly quarrels, and that they had sought to rid themselves in any way of their invaders? But it is cowardly nations only, those who dare not wield the sword, that revenge themselves with the lurking dagger. There were no assassinations in Paris. The French had fought valiantly, desperately, in the field; but when valour was no longer of avail, they submitted like gallant men to a fate they could not withstand. Some instances of insult from the populace were experienced by their English visitors; some personal rencontres, which led to duels, did take place; but these smacked of open and honourable hostility. No instances of lurking and perfidious revenge occurred, and the British soldier patrolled the streets of Paris safe from treacherous

assault.

*The above remarks were suggested by a conversation with the late Mr. Canning, whom the author met in Paris, and who expressed himself in the most liberal way concerning the magnanimity of the French on the occupation of their capital by strangers.

If the English met with harshness and repulse in social intercourse, it was in some degree a proof that the people are more sincere than has been represented. The emigrants who had just returned, were not yet reinstated. Society was constituted of those who had flourished under the late régimethe newly ennobled, the recently enriched, who felt their prosperity and their consequence endangered by this change of things. The broken-down officer, who saw his glory tarnished, his fortune ruined, his occupation gone, could not be expected to look with complacency upon the authors of his downfall. The English visitor, flushed with health, and wealth, and victory, could little enter into the feelings of the blighted warrior, scarred with a hundred battles, an exile from the camp, broken in constitution by the wars, impoverished by the peace, and cast back a needy stranger in the splendid but captured metropolis of his country,

"Oh! who can tell what heroes feel

When all but life and honour's lost!"

And here let me notice the conduct of the French soldiery on the dismemberment of the army of the Loire, when two hundred thousand men were suddenly thrown out of employ; men who had been brought up to the camp, and scarce knew any other home. Few in civil, peaceful life, are aware of the severe trial to the feelings that takes place on the dissolution of a regiment. There is a fraternity in arms. The community of dangers, hardships, enjoyments; the participation in battles and victories; the companionship in adventures, at a time of life when men's feelings are most fresh, susceptible, and ardent, -all these bind the members of a regiment strongly together. To them the regiment is friends, family, home. "They identify themselves with its fortunes, its glories, its disgraces. Imagine this romantic tie suddenly dissolved; the regiment broken up; the occupation of its members gone; their military pride mortified; the career of glory closed behind them; that of obscurity, dependence, want, neglect, perhaps beggary, before them. Such was the case with the soldiers of the army of the Loire. They were sent off in squads, with officers, to the principal towns, where they were to be disarmed and discharged. In this way they passed through the country with arms in their hands, often exposed to slights and scoffs, to hunger, and various hardships and privations; but they conducted themselves magnanimously, without any of those outbreaks of violence and wrong that so often attend the dismemberment of armies.

The few years that have elapsed since the time above alluded to, have already had their effect. The proud and angry spirits which then roamed about Paris unemployed have cooled down, and found occupation. The national character begins to recover its old channels, though worn deeper by recent torrents. The natural urbanity of the French begins to find its way, like oil, to the surface, though there still remains a degree of roughness and bluntness of manner, partly real, and partly affected, by such as imagine it to indicate force and frankness. The events of the last thirty years have rendered the French a more reflecting people. They have acquired greater independence of mind and strength of judgment, together with a portion of that prudence which results from experiencing the dangerous consequences of excesses. However that period may have been stained by crimes, and filled with extravagances, the French have certainly come out of it a greater nation than before. One of their own philosophers observes, that in one or two generations the nation will probably combine the ease and elegance of the old character with force and solidity. They were light, he says, before the Revolution; then wild and savage; they have become more thoughtful and reflective. It is only old Frenchmen, now-a-days, that are gay and trivial; the young are very serious personages.

P.S.-In the course of a morning's walk, about the time the above remarks were written, I observed the Duke of Wellington, who was on a brief visit to Paris. He was alone, simply attired in a blue frock, with an umbrella under his arm, and his hat drawn over his eyes, and sauntering across the Place Vendôme, close by the column of Napoleon. He gave a glance up at the column as he passed, and continued his loitering way up the Rue de la Paix, stopping occasionally to gaze in at the shop-windows, elbowed now and then by other gazers, who little suspected that the quiet, lounging individual they were jostling so unceremoniously was the conqueror who had twice entered their capital victoriouslyhad controlled the destinies of the nation, and eclipsed the glory of the military idol, at the base of whose column he was thus negligently sauntering.

Some years afterwards I was at an evening's entertainment given by the Duke at Apsley House to William IV. The Duke had manifested his admiration of his great adversary by having portraits of him in different parts of the house. At the bottom of the grand staircase stood the colossal statue of