,
A fait sortir le roi
Louis Philippe Premier;
Qui par juste reconnoissance
Le mit dans les armes de France."

Did not sleep very comfortably this night; there were too many of us in
the bed, and all of us bits of philosophers. I am a bit of a
philosopher myself, and surely fleas cannot be considered more than very
little bits. All French fleas are philosophers, it having been fairly
established by a French punster that they belong to the _secte--
d'Epicure (des piqueurs_).

The English who go up the Rhine to Switzerland generally proceed on the
German side. Few pass through Alsace or German France, and those who
do, take the shortest route, by which they avoid Colmar. As I took the
longest in preference, I shall in few words point out the features of
the country. You pass through the valley of the Rhine, which is flat
and fertile to excess, the only break in the uniformity of the country
being the chain of Vorges mountains, distant about eight miles on your
right, and the occasional passage of the dry bed of a winter torrent
from the mountains. The cathedral at Colmar is well worth seeing. In
outward architecture it is not very remarkable, but its painted windows
are quite as fine as those of Strasbourg; and, in one point, it excels
all the cathedrals I have seen, which is the choir, handsomely carved in
oak, and with good pictures let into the panels. It is in better taste,
more solid, and less meretricious in its ornaments, than any I know of.
It has also a very fine pulpit, the whole of which, as well as the steps
and balustrade leading up to it, is of fine marble. At Colmar, the eye
will be struck with the peculiarity of architecture in some of the old
buildings; it very often is pure Saracenic. The roads being excellent,
we arrived in good time at Basle.

Once more in Switzerland; I have more pleasure now in revisiting a
country which has left pleasant reminiscences in my mind, than in
passing through one hitherto unexplored. In the latter case, I am
usually disappointed. When we revisit those spots in which our
childhood was passed, how invariably do we find that the memory is true
to what the place appeared to us when children, and hardly to be
recognised when our ideas and powers of mind have been developed and
enlarged in proportion with our frames. Is it possible? thought I, when
I returned, after a lapse of fifteen years, to the house of my childhood
out of mere curiosity, for my fa