It was on the evening of the 14th that the route was received,
and on the following morning, at daybreak, we commenced our
march. The country through which we moved had nothing in it,
unconnected with past events, calculated in any extraordinary
degree to attract attention. Behind us, indeed, rose the
Pyrenees in all their grandeur, forming, on that side, a noble
boundary to the prospect; and on our left was the sea, a boundary
different it is true in kind, though certainly not less
magnificent. But, excepting at these two extremities, there was
nothing in the landscape on which the eye loved particularly to
rest, because the country, though pretty enough, has none of
that exquisite richness and luxuriance which we had been led to
expect as characteristic of the South of France. The houses,
too, being all in a ruinous and dilapidated condition, reminded
us more forcibly of the scenes of violence and outrage which
had been lately acted among them, than of those ideas of rural
contentment and innocence which various tales and melodramas had
taught us to associate in our own minds with thoughts of the
land of the vine.

MARCH TOWARDS BORDEAUX

Regarded, however, in connexion with past events, the scene was
indeed most interesting; though to a stranger fresh from
England--a man, we will suppose, of retired and peaceful habits,
I can readily imagine that it would have been productive of much
pain; for on each side of the road, in whatever direction we cast
our eyes, and as far as the powers of vision extended, we beheld
cottages unroofed and in ruins, chateaux stripped of their doors