Here I am in Paris. I left Bruxelles the 29th July, stopped one night at
Mons and passing thro' Valenciennes, Péronne and St Quentin arrived here on
the third day. The villages and towns on the road had been pretty well
stripped of eatables by the Allied army, as well as by the French, so that
we did not meet with the best fare. In every village the white flag was
displayed by way of propitiating the clemency of the Allies and averting
plunder.


August 7th.

I have put up at the _Hôtel de Cahors_, Rue de Richelieu, where I pay five
francs per diem for a single room; such is the dearness of lodgings at this
moment. It is well furnished, however, with sofas, commodes, mirrors and a
handsome clock and is very spacious withal, there being an alcove for the
bed. This situation is extremely convenient, being close to the Palais
Royal, Rue St Honoré, Théâtre Français, Louvre and the Tuileries on one
side, and to the Grand Opera, the Théâtre Feydeau, the Italian Opera and
the Boulevards on the other. The National Library is not many yards distant
from my hotel, and a few yards from that _en face_ is the Grand Opera house
or _Académie Royale de Musique_.

This city is filled with officers and travellers of all kinds who have
followed the army. The House of Legislature of the Hundred Days,--as it is
the fashion to style Napoleon's last reign--dissolved themselves on the
demand of a million of francs as a war contribution made by Marshall
Blucher. Louis XVIII has been hustled into Paris, and now occupies the
throne of his ancestors under the protection of a million of foreign
bayonets, and the _bannière des Lis_ has replaced the tricolor on the
castle of the Tuileries. A detachment of the British army occupies