wo before I was in this extraordinary coffee-house I had
traversed a spot as opposite to it as could well be--the Catacombs!--a
range of vaults nearly half a mile long, about 80 feet under ground, in
which are deposited all the bones from all the cemeteries in Paris. I
suppose we were in company with some millions of skeletons, whose skulls
are so arranged as to form regular patterns, and here and there was an
altar made of bones fancifully piled up, on the sides an inscription in
Latin, French, &c. Behind one wall the bodies of all who perished in the
massacres in Paris were immured. They were brought in carts at night and
thrown in, and there they rest, festering not in their shrouds but in
clothes. Such a mass of corrupt flesh would soon have infested all the
vaults, so they were bricked up.

[Illustration: Catacombs Paris, July 8, 1814]

I wish to recommend our hotel to any people you may hear of coming to
Paris--Hotel des Estrangers, Rue du Hazard, kept by Mr. Meriel. Its
situation is both quiet and convenient; it is really not five minutes'
walk from the leading objects of Paris, and the people have been civil
to us beyond measure.

CHAPTER IV

ON THE TRACK OF NAPOLEON'S ARMY

The Ex-Imperial Guard--Anecdotes of the last days at
Fontainebleau--Invalided Cossacks--"Trahison"--Ruin and
desolation--Roast dog--An English soldier--A Trappist veteran--Jack
boots--Polytechnic cadets--A Russian officer--Cossacks, Kalmucks,
and sparrows--Prussians and British lions--Rhine Castles--Rival
inscriptions--Diligence atmosphere--Brisemaison--Sociable English.

On leaving Paris, Edward Stanley planned to follow the traces of the
desperate campaign which Napoleon had fought in the early months of that
year (1814) against the Allies, and in which he so nearly succeeded in
saving his crown for a time.

As, however, the English travellers did not intend to return again to
Paris, they reversed Napoleon's line of march and started to
Fontainebleau by the road along which the Emperor rode back in hot haste
on the night of March 30th, to take up the command of the force which
should have been defending his capital, and where the sight of Mortier's
flying troops convinced him that all hope was at an end.

When they had visited Fontainebleau, where the final abdication had
taken place on April 11th, they turned north-east to Melun and posted on
through towns which had been the scenes of some of the most desperate
fighting