charming scenery, the enlivening music, the number and variety of characters, which are supported with life and spirit, the beauty of the female performers, and the graceful movements, and lively animated air of all;-if they do not recal to the spectator any thing which he has really witnessed, seem to transport him into the more delightful regions in which his fancy has occasionally wandered, and to realize for a moment to him, those fairy scenes to which his youthful imagination had been familiarized, by the beautiful fictions of poetry or romance.

The Parisian theatres are at all times sources of much amusement and delight; but at the time of which we speak, they were doubly interesting, as affording opportunities of seeing the most distinguished characters of this eventful age; and as furnishing occasional strong indications of the state of popular feeling in France. The interest of occurrences of this last kind is now gone by, and it is almost unnecessary for us to bear testimony to the strong party that uniformly manifested itself when any sentiment was uttered expressive of a wish for war, of admiration of martial achievements, and of indignation at foreign influence, or domestic perfidy, (under which head the conduct of Tal

leyrand and of Marmont was included); and more especially, when the success, and glory, and eternal, immutable, untarnished honour of France, were the theme of declamation. The applause at passages of this last description seemed sometimes ludicrous enough, when the theatres were guarded by Russian grenadiers, and nearly half filled with allied officers, loaded with honours which had been won in combating the French armies.

The majority of the audience, however, appeared always delighted at the change of government, and in the opera in particular, the first time that the King appeared, the expression of loyalty was long, reiterated, and enthusiastic, far beyond our most sanguine anticipations. It would have been absurd to judge of the real feelings of the majority of the Parisians, still more of the nation at large, from this scene; and it was certainly not to be wished, that a blind and devoted loyalty to one sovereign should take the place of infatuated attachment to another; yet it was impossible not to sympathize with the joy of people who had been agitated, during the best part of their lives, by political convulsions, or oppressed by military tyranny, but who fancied themselves at length relieved from both; and who connected the hope

of spending the remainder of their days in tranquillity and peace, with the recollections which they had received from their fathers, of the happiness and prosperity of their country under the long line of its ancient kings. It was impossible to hear the national air of " Vive Henri Quatre," and the enthusiastic acclamations which accompanied it, without entering for the moment into the feeling of unhesitating attachment, and unqualified loyalty, which has so long prevailed in most countries of the world, but which the citizens of a free country should indulge only when it has been deserved by long experience and tried virtue.

It was with different, but not less interesting feelings, that we listened to the same tune from the splendid bands of the Russian and Prussian guards, as they passed along the Boulevards, on their return to their own countries. It was a grand and moving spectacle of political virtue, to see the armies which had been arrayed against France, striving to do honour to the government which she had assumed:-instead of breathing curses, or committing outrages on the great and guilty city, which had provoked all their vengeance, to see them march out of the gates of Paris with the regularity of the strictest military discipline, to the sound of the grand na

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tional air, which spoke " peace to her walls, and "prosperity to her palaces,”—leaving, as it were, a blessing on the capital which they had conquered and forgiven: It was a scene that left an impression on the mind worthy of the troops who had bravely and successfully opposed the domineering power of France,-who had struggled with it when it was strongest, and “ruled it "when 'twas wildest," but who spared it when it was fallen;-who forgot their wrongs when it was in their power to revenge them;-who cast the laurels from their brows, as they passed before the rightful monarch of France, and honoured him as the representative of a great and gallant people, long beguiled by ambition, and abused by tyranny, but now acknowledging their errors, and professing moderation and repentance.

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CHAPTER VIII.

PARIS-THE FRENCH ARMY AND IMPERIAL

GOVERNMENT.

T

Ir is certainly a mistake to suppose, that the military power of France was first created by Napoleon, or that military habits were actually forced on the people, with the view of aiding his ambitious projects. The French have a restless, aspiring, enterprising spirit, not accompanied, as in England, by a feeling of individual importance, and a desire of individual independence, but modified by habits of submission to arbitrary power, and fitted, by the influence of despotic government, for the subordination of military discipline. Add to this, the encouragement which was held out by the rapid promo

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