een nights successively, and
described to us the action at Rheims, one of the last that was fought,
where half of their regiment were left on the field. These men
complained loudly of the treacherous conduct of Napoleon to them and
their brethren of the same corps; yet they expressed their willingness
to undergo all their sufferings again, if they could thereby transfer
the date of the peace to the other side of the Rhine.

The effect of this measure on the middling and higher ranks was not more
oppressive than that of the conscription on the lower ranks, and even on
persons in tolerably good circumstances; for we have heard of L.400
Sterling, being twice paid to rescue an individual, whom a third
conscription had at length torn from his family. The impression produced
in France, however, by either of these measures, cannot be judged of
from a comparison with the feelings so often manifested in this country,
under circumstances of less aggravated affliction. The same careless,
unthinking, constitutional cheerfulness, which is so commendable in
those Frenchmen whose sufferings are all personal, displays itself in a
darker point of view, when they are called on to sympathise with the
sufferings of their friends. It is a disposition, allied indeed to
magnanimity on the one hand, but to selfishness on the other. The
sufferings of the French on such an occasion as the loss of a near
relation, may be acute; but they are of very short duration. In Paris,
mourning is at present hardly ever worn. At the time when we were there,
although a bloody campaign had only recently been concluded, we did not
see above five or six persons in mourning, and even these were not
certainly French. We understood it to be a principle all over France,
never to wear mourning for a son; but whether this was adopted in
compliance with the wishes of Napoleon, as was stated by some, or was
general before his time, as others maintained, we were not sufficiently
informed.

* * *

It may be a question, whether the real, as well as professed motive of
the policy of Napoleon, while he directed the affairs of France, was
some ill-conceived and absurd idea of the superior happiness and
prosperity which France might enjoy, if placed indisputably at the head
of the civilized world, and especially if elevated above the rivalship
of England; but if the good of France was really his end, it is quite
certain that it engaged very little of his attention, and that