n their
enthusiasm himself; that the sufferings of thousands should have been
forgotten in the fate of one to whom the miseries of others never
afforded a subject of regret; and that the only occasion on which
generous sentiments were manifested by the French army, should have been
the overthrow of that power by which their ambition and their wickedness
had been supported.

We had the good fortune to see the infantry of the old guard drawn up in
line in the streets of Fontainbleau, and their appearance was such as
fully answered the idea we had formed of that body of veteran soldiers,
who had borne the French eagles through every capital of Europe. Their
aspect was bold and martial; there was a keenness in their eyes which
bespoke the characteristic intelligence of the French soldiers, and a
ferocity in the expression of their countenances which seemed to have
been unsubdued even by the unparalleled disasters in which their country
had been involved. The people of the town itself complained in the
bitterest terms of their licentious conduct, and repeatedly said, that
they dreaded them more as friends than the Cossacks themselves as
enemies. They seemed to harbour the most unbounded resentment against
the people of this country; their countenances bore the expression of
the strongest enmity as we walked along their line, and we frequently
heard them mutter among themselves, in the most emphatic manner, _Sacre
Dieu, voila des Anglois!_--Whatever the atrocity of their conduct,
however, might have been, to the people of their own, as well as every
other country, it was impossible not to feel the strongest emotion at
the sight of the veteran soldiers whose exploits had so long rivetted
the attention of all who felt an interest in the civilized world. These
were the men who first raised the glory of the republican armies on the
plains of Italy; who survived the burning climate of Egypt, and chained
victory to the imperial standards at Jena, at Austerlitz, and at
Friedland--who followed the career of victory to the walls of the
Kremlin, and marched undaunted through the ranks of death amid the snows
of Russia;--who witnessed the ruin of France under the walls of Leipsic,
and struggled to save her falling fortune on the heights of Laon; and
who preserved, in the midst of national humiliation, and when surrounded
by the mighty foreign Powers, that undaunted air and unshaken firmness,
which, even in the moment of defeat, commande