the best terms with the female
inhabitants, and were often to be seen assisting them in their work,
playing at the battledore and shuttlecock with them in the streets, or
strolling in their company along the banks of the Seine, and through the
woods of Belleville or St Cloud, evidently to the satisfaction of both
parties. Much must be allowed for the national levity of the French; yet
it may be doubted, whether the officers and soldiers of a victorious
army are ever, in the first instance, very obnoxious to the females,
even of a vanquished country.

CHAPTER II.

PARIS--THE ALLIED ARMIES.

To those whose attention had been long fixed on the great political
revulsion which had brought the wandering tribes of the Wolga and the
Don into the heart of France, and whose minds had been incessantly
occupied for many months previous to the time of which we speak, (as the
minds of almost all Englishmen had been), with wishes for the success,
and admiration of the exploits, of the brave troops who then occupied
Paris, it may naturally be supposed, that even all the wonders of that
capital were, in the first instance, objects of secondary consideration.
It was not until our curiosity had been satisfied by the sight of the
Emperor Alexander, the Duke of Wellington, Marshal Blucher, Count
Platoff, and such numbers of the Russian and Prussian officers and
soldiers, as we considered a fair specimen of the whole armies, that we
could find time to appreciate the beauties even of the Apollo and the
Venus.

The streets of Paris are always amusing and interesting, from the
numbers and varieties of costumes and characters which they present; but
at the time of which we speak, they might be considered as exhibiting an
epitome of the greater part of Europe. Parties of Russian cuirassiers,
Prussian lancers, and Hungarian hussars; Cossacks, old and young, from
those whose beards were grey with age, to those who were yet beardless,
cantering along after their singular fashion--their long lances poised
on their stirrups, and loosely fastened to their right arms, vibrating
over their heads; long files of Russian and Prussian foragers, and long
trains of Austrian baggage waggons, winding slowly through the crowd;
idle soldiers of all services, French as well as allied, lounging about
in their loose great coats and trowsers, with long crooked pipes hanging
from their mouths; patroles of infantry parading about under arms,
composed half o