Spectacle_ is indifferent, but they have an excellent company of comedians.
The representations are in French. I saw the _Festin de Pierre_ of
Corneille exceedingly well performed. The actors who did the parts of Don
Juan and Sganarelle were excellent, and the scene with M. Dimanche, wherein
he demands payment of his bill, was admirably given. I have also seen the
_Plaideurs_ of Racine, a very favourite piece of mine; every actor played
his part most correctly, and the scene between the Comtesse de Pimbeche and
Chicaneau and L'Intimé wherein the latter, disguised as a _Bailli_, offers
himself to be kicked by the former, was given in very superior style. The
scene of the trial of the dog, with the orations of Petit Jean as
_demandeur_ and L'Intimé as _défenseur_, were played with good effect. I
never recollect having witnessed a theatrical piece which afforded me
greater amusement.


NAMUR, May 12.

We left Brussels yesterday afternoon, and having obtained passports to
visit the military posts we went to Genappe, a small village half-way
between Bruxelles and Namur, where we brought to for the night at a small
but comfortable inn called _Le Roi d'Espagne_. Two battalions of the
regiment Nassau-Usingen are quartered in Genappe. We arrived at Namur this
morning at nine o'clock and put up at the _Hôtel d'Arenberg_. On the road
we stopped at a peasant's house to drink coffee; and we were entertained by
our hostess with complaints against the Prussians, who commit, as she said,
all sorts of exactions on the peasantry on whom they are quartered. Not
content with exacting three meals a day, when they were only entitled to
two, and for which they are bound to give their rations, they sell these,
and appropriate the money to their own use; then the demand for brandy and
_schnapps_ is increasing. But what can be expected from an army whose