he purpose of erecting a
statue of Louis the Sixteenth, being the spot in which he was beheaded,
he exclaimed, "What an absurdity! but those Bourbons are incorrigible;
would it not be much better to let such events as those sink as much as
possible into oblivion, instead of endeavouring to perpetuate them. One
would have thought," continued he, "that the adversity and exile which
that besotted family had endured would have operated upon them as a
lesson, but they will never benefit from any lessons; one, however, will
be tried upon them very soon, if they do not mind what they are about,
and we shall see what impression that will make." The man's words came
to pass, they did indeed receive a severe lesson, which involved them in
ruin and disgrace.

Having observed a number of persons assembled on the Boulevards, I asked
the cause, and was told that some cavalry was expected to pass in a few
minutes, for which the people were waiting. I took my station amongst
them, which happened to be next to two bakers' boys, who were in earnest
conversation, when I was edified by the following observations. "Do you
know why Alphonse left his place?" "Yes," replied the other, "because
his master gave him a cuff on the head." "That certainly was a very
great indignity;" observed the younger; "to receive a blow is very
humiliating." "That is true," replied the other, "but figure to yourself
the folly of a lad, for the sake of a paltry thump, to sacrifice all his
future prospects; in a few years, had he put up with the insult, he
might have been head man in a bakehouse in the Rue St. Denis, which is
one of the most populous quarters in Paris." "True," said the younger,
"it would have been wiser to have sayed; but when excited, reason does
not always come to one's aid."

I have translated the discourse as literally as I could, that I might
preserve as nearly as possible the expressions which the boys used, as
it has often struck me how much more refined they are, than those to
which lads of the same age and class would have had recourse in England.

Some of the scenes at the tribunals are very amusing; I remember a very
rough ferocious-looking man having been brought up for returning to
Paris, from which he had been sent away on account of some offences
which he had committed, and was ordered to some small obscure town in
the provinces, under _surveillance_. Finding his banishment very
irksome, an irresistible impulse brought him back t