I surmise this is not the only profession they exercise, if I might judge
from the _doux yeux_ they occasionally directed to some of the officers.
These girls did not at least seem by their demeanour as if likely to incur
the anathema of Rinaldo in the _Orlando Furioso_:

meritamente muoro Una crudele,

but rather more disposed to

dar vita all'amator fidele.[3]

Alost is a neat, clean town or large village, and the same description will
serve for all the towns and villages in Brabant and Flanders, as they are
built on the same plan. We arrived at Bruxelles late in the evening and put
up at the _Hotel d'Angleterre_.

This morning, the General and myself went to pay our respects to the _Gran
Capitano_ of the _Holy League_, and we left our cards. He is, I hear, very
confident of the result of the campaign, and no doubt he has for him the
prayers of all the pious in England against those atheistical fellows the
French; and these prayers will surely elicit a "host of angels" to come
down to aid in the destruction of the Pandemonium of Paris where Satan's
lieutenant sits enthroned. The reflecting people here are astonished that
Napoleon does not begin the attack. The inhabitants of Belgium are in
general, from all that I can hear or see, not at all pleased with the
present order of things, and they much lament the being severed from
France. The two people, the Belgians and Hollanders, do not seem to
amalgamate; and the former, though they render ample justice to the
moderation, good sense, and beneficent intentions of the present monarch,
who is personally respected by every one, yet do not disguise their wish to