not been able to open his door that morning from the dead bodies piled on the step before it. Round all the young trees (the old trees were cut down for former barricades in February and June, 1848), the ground shelves a little in a circle; in these circles there were pools of blood. The people the extraordinary, inimitable, consistently inconsistent French people-were unconcernedly lounging about, looking at these things with pleased yet languid curiosity. They paddled in the pools of blood; they traced curiously the struggles of some wounded wretch, who, shot or sabred on the curbstone, had painfully, deviously, dragged himself (so the gouts of blood showed) to a door-step-to die. They felt the walls, pitted by musket bullets; they poked their walking-sticks into the holes made by the cannon balls. It was as good as a play to them.

The road on either side was lined with dragoons armed cap-à-pié. The poor tired horses were munching the forage with which the muddy ground was strewn; and the troopers sprawled listlessly about smoking their short pipes, and mending their torn costume or shattered accoutrements. Indulging, however, in the dolce far niente, as they seemed to be, they were ready for action at a moment's notice. There was, about two o'clock, an alerte-a rumour of some tumult towards the Rue St. Denis. One solitary trumpet sounded "boot and saddle;" and, with almost magical celerity, each dragoon twisted a quantity of forage into a species of rope, which he hung ovor his saddle-bow, crammed his half-demolishsd loaf into his holsters, buckled on his cuirass; then springing himself on his horse, sat motionless: each cavalier with his pistol cocked, and his finger on the trigger. The crowd thickened; and in the road itself there was a single file of cabs, carts, and even private carriages. Almost every moment detachments of prisoners, mostly

blouses, passed, escorted by cavalry; then a yellow flag was seen, announcing the approach of an ambulance, or long covered vehicle filled with wounded soldiers; then hearses; more prisoners, more ambulances, orderly dragoons at full gallop, orderlies, military surgeons in their cocked hats and long frock coats, broughams with smart general officers inside, all smoking.

As to the soldiers, they appear never to leave off smoking. They smoke in the guard-room, off duty, and even when on guard. An eye-witness of the combat told me that many of the soldiers had, when charging, short pipes in their mouths, and the officers, almost invariably, smoked cigars.

In reference to the discipline of the French soldiery, and their extreme trustworthiness against their own countrymen, I have heard some wise men, within these few days, much astonished by, and virtuously indignant at, the testimony of certain witnesses, published in the "Times" newspaper. They have their confirmation (though new and strange as they are to such authorities) in the evidence of an officer of some merit, called the Duke of Wellington, before a Select Committee on Punishments in the Army. The following passage occurs :

"Upon service, do you conceive that the discipline of the Army, which you had under your command in the Peninsula, was superior to the discipline of the French troops opposed to you?—I have not the most distant doubt of it; infinitely superior.

"Superior in respect to the treatment of the country in which they were serving?—Not to be compared with it, even in their own country, an enemy's country to us; and to them, their own country.

"In what respect was the French Army so inferior to ours?—A general system of plunder; great laxity in the performance of their duty; great irregularity; in short, irregularity, which we would not venture to risk existence on.

• Was it not the fact, that the people came home to their houses when the English were to occupy them; having left them when the French were to occupy them?-Yes, that was the case.'

At three there was more trumpeting, more drumming, a general backing of horses on the foot-passengers, announcing the approach of some important event. A cloud of cavalry came galloping by; then a numerous and brilliant troop of staff-officers. In the midst of these, attired in the uniform of a general of the National Guard, rode Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.

I saw him again the following day, in the Champs Elysées, riding with a single English groom behind him; and again in a chariot escorted by cuirassiers.

When he had passed, I essayed a further progress towards the Rue St. Denis; but the hedge of bayonets still bristled as ominously as ever. I went into a little tobacconist's shop; and the pretty marchande showed me a frightful trace of the passage of a cannon ball, which had gone right through the shutter and glass, smashed cases on cases of cigars, and half demolished the little tobacconist's parlour. My countrymen were in great force on the Boulevards, walking arm in arm, four abreast, as it is the proud custom of Britons to do. From them, I heard how Major Pongo, of the Company's service, would certainly have placed his sword at the disposal of the Government in support of law and order, had he not been confined to his bed with a severe attack of rheumatism: how Mr. Bellows, Parisian corespondent to the "Evening Grumbler," had been actually led out to be shot, and was only saved by the interposition of his tailor, who was a Sergeant in the National Guard; and who, passing by, though not on duty, exerted his influence with the military authorities, to save the life of Mr. Bellows: how the Reverend Mr. Faldstool, ministre Anglican,

was discovered in a corn-bin, moaning piteously: how Bluckey, the man who talked so much about the Pytchley hounds, and of the astonishing leaps he had taken when riding after them, concealed himself in a coal-cellar, and lying down on his face, never stirred from that position from noon till midnight on Thursday (although I, to be sure, have no right to taunt him with his prudence): how, finally, M'Gropus, the Scotch surgeon, bolted incontinently in a cab, with an imense quantity of luggage, towards the Chemin-de-fer du Nord; and, being stopped in the Rue St. Denis, was ignominiously turned out of his vehicle by the mob; the cab, together with M'Gropus's trunks, being immediately converted into the nucleus of a barricade :— how, returning the following morning to see whether he could recover any portion of his effects, he found the barricades in the possession of the military, who were quietly cooking their soup over a fire principally fed by the remnants of his trunks and portmanteaus; whereupon, frantically endeavouring to rescue some disjecta membra of his property from the wreck, he was hustled and bonneted by the soldiery, threatened with arrest, and summary military vengeance, and ultimately paraded from the vicinity of the bivouac, by bayonets with sharp points.

With the merits or demerits of the struggle, I have nothing to do. But I saw the horrible ferocity and brutality of this ruthless soldiery. I saw them bursting into shops, to search for arms or fugitives; dragging the inmates forth, like sheep from a slaughter-house, smashing the furniture and windows. I saw them, when making a passage for a convoy of prisoners, or a wagon full of wounded, strike wantonly at the bystanders with the but-ends of their muskets, and thrust at them with their bayonets. I might have seen more: but my exploring inclination was rapidly

subdued by a gigantic Lancer at the corner of the Rue Richelieu; who seeing me stand still for a moment stooped from his horse, and putting his pistol to my head (right between the eyes) told me to “traverser!" As I believed he would infallibly have blown my brains out in another minute, I turned and fled. So much for what I saw. I know, as far as a man can know, from trustworthy persons, from eye-witnesses, from patent and notorious report, that the military, who are now the sole and supreme masters of that unhappy city and country, have been perpetrating most frightful barbarities since the riots were over. I know that, from the Thursday I arrived, to the Thursday I left Paris, they were daily shooting their prisoners in cold. blood; that a man caught on the Pont Neuf, drunk with the gunpowder-brandy of the cabarets, and shouting some balderdash about the République démocratique et sociale, was dragged into the Prefecture of Police, and, some soldiers' cartridges having been found in his pocket, was led into the court-yard, and, there and then, untried, unshriven, unannealed, shot! I know that in the Champ de Mars one hundred and fifty-six men were executed; and I heard one horrible story (so horrible that I can scarcely credit it) that a batch of prisoners were tied together with ropes, like a faggot of wood; and that the struggling mass was fired into, until not a limb moved, nor a groan was uttered. I know-and my informant was a clerk in the office of the Ministry of War-that the official return of insurgents killed, was two thousand and seven, and of soldiers fifteen. Rather long odds!

We were in-doors betimes this Friday evening, comparing notes busily, as to what we had seen during the day.. We momentarily expected to hear the artillery again, but, thank Heaven, the bloodshed in the streets at least was