tened by the obscure light which distance throws over the
objects of nature. To an English mind, the effect of the whole is
infinitely increased, by the animating associations with which this
scenery is connected;--by the remembrance of the mighty struggle between
freedom and slavery, which was here terminated;--of the heroic deeds
which were here performed, and the unequalled magnanimity which was here
displayed. It was here that the expiring efforts of military despotism
were overthrown--that the armies of Russia stood triumphant over the
power of France, and nobly avenged the ashes of their own capital, by
sparing that of their prostrate enemy.

When we visited the heights of Belleville, the traces of the recent
struggle were visibly imprinted on the villages and woods with which the
hill is covered. The marks of blood were still to be discerned on the
chaussee which leads through the village of Pantin; the elm trees which
line the road were cut asunder, or bored through with cannon shot, and
their stems riddled in many parts with the incessant fire of the grape
shot. The houses in La Villette, Belleville and Pantin, were covered
with the marks of musket shot; the windows of many were shattered, or
wholly destroyed, and the interior of the rooms broken by the balls
which seemed to have pierced every part of the buildings. So thickly
were the houses in some places covered with these marks, that it
appeared almost incredible how any one could have escaped from so
destructive a fire. Even the beautiful gardens with which the slope of
the heights are adorned, and the inmost recesses of the wood of
Romainville, bore throughout the marks of the desperate struggles which
they had lately witnessed, and exhibited the symptoms of fracture or
destruction in the midst of the luxuriance of natural beauty; yet,
though they had so recently been the scene of mortal combat; though the
ashes of the dead yet lay in heaps on different parts of the field of
battle, the prolific powers of nature were undecayed: the vines
clustered round the broken fragments of the instruments of war,--the
corn spread a sweeter green over the fields, which were yet wet with
human blood, and the trees waved with renovated beauty over the
uncoffined remains of the departed brave; emblematic of the decay of
man, and of the immortality of nature.

The French have often been accused of selfishness, and the indifference
which they often manifest to the fate of