of soldiers whom the French Revolution has bred, demoralized, and devoted, would be a refreshment, like an oasis in the desert. There may no doubt have occurred many for the gratification of others more fortunate than I have been in this particular. I am giving no opinion of the French nation at large; being quite willing to judge of them by many individuals of real worth and feeling, whom I have the happiness to know; but assuredly these were not in any way connected with the army. Self, I will venture to say, is the real idol of revolutionized Frenchmen. The truth forced itself upon my observation at every turn, when viewing closely that dangerous class of the French nation. An enumeration of the occasions were here out of place; but from a number to which I could appeal, I shall select one incident; and if my readers can imagine the hero of it shouting his Emperor's name, and tossing his arm in the air, as he would no doubt have done had it been his lot to have had it amputated, in public, after the battle of Waterloo, they are at liberty to draw their own conclusions with regard to the motives by which, in such a case, he would have been actuated.

Wishing when in Paris to hear more of the conversation of Frenchmen than I could meet with at the restaurateurs and coffee-houses, where it is understood that no one table shall, know what another is saying or doing, I frequently dined at tables d'hôte, where I was often witness to very free discourse on the part of the enemies of the government. On one of these occasions, in a hotel in the Place Carousel, I chanced to sit, at table, opposite to a colonel of the imperial guard, just returned from the Loire, to arrange some private affairs in Paris previous to retiring to his home, in obedience to the

ordonnance of the King. This man could not help his ill looks; but a singularly ruffian-like appearance was rendered in him tenfold more disgusting by his noise, presumption, and ferocity. He harangued in a sort of fury every moment of his intervals of eating and driuking; his theme, not his country-not his emperor-but himself,-his own disasters and disappoint. ments. Repeatedly striking his hand on the table, with much elevation of voice, he told us that the change of affairs had ruined him; that he had thrown away the labours of a life of warfare; that he had been in so many battles, and attained so many honours to no purpose; that the disasters of the French army had driven him back to poverty; that he scorned to solicit a pitiful half pay from the Bourbon government, who might enjoy if they pleased, the satisfaction of having destroyed him—but justice would one day be done! There needed no addition to this last virtuous hope fully to explain his frequent allusion to the declaration of the allied powers. "Why in the face of that do they remain an hour

in France? Napoleon n'est plus*.”

Having some curiosity to feel the pulse of this enfant de la Revolution on the subject of the momentous appeal which was then depending, I asked a person who sat near him, what had become of Labedoyere. The answer was assumingly given and with by the colonel, who pointed to a clock in the room, another rap among the glasses, said, “in half an hour he will be no more." His information was quite correct. half hour elapsed, and the patriot pointing again to the clock as it was striking six, waited till the last stroke, and then with

"Napoleon exists no more."

The

a sort of ferocious playfulness, which manifested strongly the reality of his sympathy with Labedoyere, he bestowed a smart slap upon his own cheek, filled a glass of wine, and helped himself to another peach. My own wouder that such a man actually was permitted to sit at table with gentlemen, amounted at this moment to a kind of shudder, which diverted several of the other guests who observed it. Never did thank Heaven more fervently because of the Life Guards, the Greys, and the Enniskillens.

Next day I chanced to see the colonel seated in the cabriole of a diligence, proceeding à ses foyers.

My acquaintance with this accomplished person solved to me another question much agitated; namely, whether the deposition and detention of Bonaparte is security of itself for the peace of France, and consequently of Europe; and whether justice would have been done to the human race in the present extreme situation of the world, if the allied powers had withdrawn their troops the moment his person was secured on board the Bellerophon, in terms of the interpretation which the colonel put upon their declaration; a declaration which he was pleased to forget was an offer made and rejected, and again modestly founded upon after the war had failed, that war being the alternative first preferred by the French army, and, as they maintain, by the French people.

APPENDIX.

LONDON GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY.

Downing Street, June 22, 1815. MAJOR the Honourable H. Percy, arrived late last night with a dispatch from Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, K. G. to Earl Bathurst, his Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the War Department, of which the following is a copy:

MY LORD,

Waterloo, June 19, 1815.

Bonaparte having collected the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 6th corps of the French army and the Imperial Guards, and nearly all the cavalry, on the Sambre, and between that river and the Meuse, between the 10th and the 14th of the month, advanced on the 15th and attacked the Prussian posts at Thuin and Lobez, on the Sambre, at daylight in the morning.