e French on their retreat, for which they were
most severely, and, I think, unjustly, censured in our
despatches--indeed, after seeing and hearing with my own eyes and ears,
I feel less than ever inclined to put implicit faith in these public
documents. The Magazine was in a large house where wines had been stored
in the cellar--about half a mile to the west of the town upon a hill.
About 3 o'clock in the morning the explosion took place with an
"_ebranlement_" which shook the town to its very foundation. In an
instant every pane of glass was shattered to atoms, but the cathedral
windows, which were composed of small squares in lead, escaped tolerably
well, only here and there some patches being forced out. The tiles also
partook of the general crash. Many, of course, were broken by the shower
of shot, stones, &c., which fell, but the actual concussion destroyed
the greater part. Numbers of houses were remaining in their dilapidated
state, and presented a curious scene. We went to see the spot where the
house stood, for the house itself, like the temple of Loretto,
disappeared altogether. Some others near it were on their last
legs--top, beams, doors, all blown away. Even the trees in a garden were
in part thrown down, and the larger ones much excoriated. Only one
person was killed on the spot, supposed to have been a marauder who was
pillaging near the place. Another person about half a mile off, driving
away his furniture to a place of safety, was wounded, and died soon
afterwards.

From Meaux, I may say almost all the way to Chalons, a distance of above
150 miles, the country bore lamentable marks of the scourge with which
it has been afflicted. I will allow you--I would allow myself perhaps,
when I look back to the circumstances connected with the war--to wish
that all the country, Paris included, had been sacked and pillaged as a
just punishment, or rather as the sole mode of convincing these
infatuated people that they are the conquered and not the Conqueror of
the Allies. Wherever I go, whatever field of battle I see--be it Craon,
Laon, Soissons, or elsewhere--victory is never accorded to the Russians.
"Oh non, les Russes etaient toujours vaincus." One fellow who had been
one of Buonaparte's guides at Craon had the impudence to assure me that
the moment he appeared the Allies ran away. "Aye, but," said I, "how
came the French to retreat and leave them alone?" "Oh, because just then
the _trahison_ which had been a