Cobden--Henry Vincent--M. Girardin--Abbe Duguerry--Victor Hugo: his
Speech._


VERSAILLES, _August 24_.

After the Convention had finished its sittings yesterday, I accompanied
Mrs. M. C---- and sisters to Versailles, where they are residing during
the summer. It was really pleasing to see among the hundreds of strange
faces in the Convention, those distinguished friends of the slave from
Boston.

Mrs. C----'s residence is directly in front of the great palace where
so many kings have made their homes, the prince of whom was Louis XIV.
The palace is now unoccupied. No ruler has dared to take up his
residence here since Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were driven from it
by the mob from Paris on the 8th of October, 1789. The town looks like
the wreck of what it once was. At the commencement of the first
revolution, it contained one hundred thousand inhabitants; now it has
only about thirty thousand. It seems to be going back to what it was in
the time of Louis XIII., when in 1624 he built a small brick chateau,
and from it arose the magnificent palace which now stands here, and
which attracts strangers to it from all parts of the world.

I arose this morning before the sun, and took a walk through the grounds
of the Palace, and remained three hours among the fountains and statuary
of this more than splendid place. But as I intend spending some days
here, and shall have better opportunities of seeing and judging, I will
defer my remarks upon Versailles for the present.