mingly taking the greatest delight in superintending
the manoeuvres of the very men who had conquered the armies, and occupied
the capital of their country; and delighted with the attentions which
were paid them by the different Russian officers who had led them to
victory?

But there is yet another exhibition in Paris, which is at once the most
singular in its nature, and which shows, in the very strongest light,
this general deep-set passion in the French, for the creation of what
they imagine the necessary _effect_ which ought to be attended to in
every thing which is displayed in public, I mean that extraordinary
exhibition which they term the Catacombs. These catacombs are large
subterraneous excavations, which stretch themselves to a great extent
under Paris; and which were originally the quarries which furnished the
stones for building the greater part of that capital. You arrive at them
by descending, by torch light, a narrow winding stair, which strikes
perpendicularly into the bosom of the earth; and which, although its
height is not above 70 feet, leads you to a landing-place, so dark and
dismal, that it might be as well in the centre of the earth as so near
its surface. After walking for a considerable time through different
obscure subterranean streets, you arrive at the great stone gate of the
catacombs, above which you can read by the light of the torches, "_The
Habitation of the Dead._" On entering, you find yourself in a dark wide
hall, supported by broad stone pillars, with a low arched roof, the
further end of which is hid in complete obscurity; but the walls of
which, (as they are illuminated by the livid and feeble gleam of the
torches), are discovered to be completely formed of human bones. All
this, as far as I have yet described,--- the subterranean streets which
you traverse,--the dark gate of the great hall, over which you read the
simple but solemn inscription,--and the gloom and silence of the
chambers, whose walls you discover to be furnished in this terrible
manner, is fitted to produce a most deep and powerful effect. To find
yourself the only living being, surrounded on every side by the dead; to
be the only thing that possesses the consciousness of existence, while
millions of those who have once _been_ as you _are_--millions of all
ages, from the infant who has just looked in upon this world, in its
innocent road to heaven, to the aged, who has fallen in the fullness of
years;--and the