"While they sit and pick their straws,
Let them dream of making laws."

Instead of active preparations to oppose or avert the progress of foreign invaders, the Parisians saw with astonishment their senators engaged in discussions of abstract theory, or frivolous points of form. A matter-of-fact man, who wished to know the distance betwixt Saint Quentin (then Lord Wellington's headquarters) and Paris, was called to order, as going into matter irrelevant to the subject of debate. The question, however, was not mal-à-propos. Grouchy's army arrived, and the allies were not long behind him. The Chambers who had by this time assumed all the old-fashioned mummery and jargon of the Convention, sent forth a deputation of its members, decorated with three-coloured scarfs, to harangue the soldiers and the fédérés; and they were conjured by the members who proposed the deputation to apprize the soldiers, that the representatives were ready to mix with them in their ranks, since, to those who fell, the day of their death would be that of their resurrection. It was supposed that Mons. Garnier, not much accustomed to such terms, had meant to say immortality, but this impropriety of expression greatly maimed the energy of his eloquence.

The representatives went forth with their fine scarfs. They harangued the soldiers, and the armed banditti called fédérés, upon the original principles of liberty and the unprescriptible rights of man, and recommended to them, as a rallying word, "Vive la Nation, Vive la Liberté!" But the charm was as ineffectual as that used by the Abbess of Andouillets. The soldiers and fédérés only answered with shouts of "Vive l'Empereur." The representatives affected to consider these acclamations as referring to Napoleon II., and having, like the Duke of Buckingham, thanked their loving friends and countrymen for sentiments which they had never expressed, they returned to make their report to the Chambers. There was, in truth, only one point of union between these assemblies of soi-disant legislators and the French troops, which was an obstinate determination, founded upon a combined sense of crime and fear of punishment, to resist to the uttermost the restoration of the legitimate sovereign, although every wise man in France had long seen it was the sole measure which promised to avert the impending ruin of the country. Upon this topic the most furious speeches were made, the most violent resolutions entered into; and the Lower Chamber, in particular, showed that it wanted only time and power to renew the anarchy, as it had adopted the language, of the early Revolution. But there were cold fits to allay this sever, and the perturbation of mind by which individuals began to find themselves agitated, broke out amid their bullying ridiculously enough. Merlin of Douai (an old hack'd engine of Philip Egalité, and Robespierre, under the last of whom he promulgated the bloody edict against suspected persons) announced to the Chamber of Representatives his having received an untimely visit of two persons in a fiacre, demanding to speak to him on the part of the president of the provisional government; that the hour being one in the morning, he had refused them admittance-happily so refused them-since, in the unanimous opinion of Merlin himself, of his wife, and honest Regnault de St Jean d'Angely, these untimely visitors could mean nothing good to his per

son.

On this annunciation, vigorous measures were proposed for the protection of Monsieur Merlin, when Boulay de la Meurthe stopped farther proceeding, by informing the assembly that the supposed emissaries of royalty were in fact what they called themselves, messengers from the president upon a matter of emergency, which they had communicated to himself upon being refused access to Merlin. One member's terrors were excited by seeing in the street a wounded officer, those of another broke out upon spying-not a peer, as used to be the cause of alarm in St Stephen's-but, sight more appalling, a royal Garde du Corps in full uniform under the gallery! These alarms were faithfully reported to the Chambers, and though the wiser representatives suppressed their own fears, there were many indications that they did not less deeply entertain them.

The anxiety of the Government and of the Chambers was singularly contrasted by the extreme indifference of him who had been the origin of all the turmoil and bloodshed, and who continued for some time to travel from the palace of Bourbon Elysées to Malmaison and back again, to give fêtes there, and to prepare for a journey no one could say whither, with as much composure as if the general distraction concerned him as little, or less, than any other temporary sojourner in France. To complete this scene of characteristic affectation, he sent a message to the Chambers to request copies of two books which he desired might be placed at his disposal. But the near approach of the allies at length accelerated his departure; and on the 29th June, when they were within three leagues of the city, he finally left the capital, which he had lately called his own, to make the best defence or capitulation they could. At first the Chambers resolved upon defence. But the means were very imperfect.

When Bonaparte, before leaving Paris for Avesnes, consulted Carnot on the means necessary for the defence of the metropolis, the latter is said to have estimated them at two hundred millions, and the labour of three years. "And when that sum of treasure and labour has been expended, sixty thousand good troops," continued the ex-director, "and a sustained assault of twenty-four hours, may render it all in vain." Nevertheless Bonaparte undertook preparations for this gigantic and hopeless task. The heights of Montmartre were fortified with extreme care, and amply supplied with artillery. The village of St Denis was also strongly garrisoned; and a partial inundation being accomplished by means of stopping two brooks, the water was introduced into the half-completed canal De l'Ourcq, the bank of which being formed into a parapet, completed a formidable line of defence on the northern side of the city, resting both flanks upon the Seine. The populace of Paris had laboured at these lines with an enthusiasm not surpassed in the most exalted frenzy of the Revolution; nor were their spirits or courage at all lowered by the approach of the conquering armies of England and Prussia, in the act of being supported, if need were, by the whole force of Russia and Austria. They confided in what had repeatedly and carefully been impressed upon their minds -that Paris could only fall by treachery; and boasted that they had now Massena, and Soult, and Davoust (as much celebrated for the military talent as for the atrocity which he displayed in the defence of Hamburgh), to direct the defence of the capital, instead of Marmont, by whom, in the preceding year, they were taught to believe it had been basely betrayed.

But although the line of defence to the north was such as to justify temporary confidence, the city on the opposite side was entirely open, excepting the occupation of the villages of Issy, and the heights of St Cloud and Meudon. These two points, if they could have been maintained, would have protected for a time that large and level plain which stands on the south side of Paris, and which now presented no advantages for defence, excepting an imperfect attempt at a trench, and a few houses and garden-walls accommodated with loop-holes for the use of musketry. On this defenceless side, therefore, the allied generals resolved to make the attack, and the Prince-Marshal, on the 30th June, crossed the Seine at St Germains, and, occupying Versailles, threatened the French position at Meudon, Issy, and the heights of St Cloud, while the Duke of Wellington, holding Gonesse, opened a communication with the Prussians by a bridge at Argenteuil. The French, though their situation was desperate, did not lose courage, and one gleam of success shone on their arms. General Excelmans, by a well-conducted assault, surprised the Prussians who occupied Versailles, and made prisoners some cavalry. But the French were assaulted in their turn, driven from the heights of St Cloud, from Issy, and from Meudon, and forced close under the city itself. This happened on the 2d July, and Blucher had already sent to the British general to request the assistance of a baltery of Congreve's rockets, -a most ominous preparation for the assault which he meditated, Meanwhile the wealthy and respectable Parisians were equally apprehensive of danger from their defenders and from the assailants. The temper of the French soldier had risen to frenzy, and the mob of the Fauxbourgs, animated by the same feelings of rage, vomited threats and execrations both against the allies, and against the citizens of Paris who favoured the cause of peace and legitimacy. Such was the temper of this motley garrison, as formidable to the capital as the presence of an incensed enemy, when upon the 3d July the terms of capitulation between the allies and Massena, who acted as commander-in-chief of the French, were arranged, and signed, Paris once more subjected to the mercy of Europe, and the Queen of Provinces a second time made a bondswoman.

A brief but fearful period of anarchy passed ere the French army, now men without a cause and without a leader, evacuated Paris and its vicinity, and ere their yet more savage associates, the fédérés, could be prevailed upon to lay down their arms, with which they still threatened death and devastation to each royalist, or rather to property and all its possessors. The firmness of the National Guards is universally acknowledged to have saved Paris in that awful moment, when, in all human probability, the first example of plunder would have been followed both by the populace and by the foreigners, and a scene of universal blood, rapine, and conflagration, must have become the necessary consequence.

They are indeed fervent politicians, whom now and then of an evening we have heard breathe an ardent wish that Paris had been burnt to the ground. These are words soon spoken in the energy of patriotic hatred, or a desire of vengeance for outraged morality; but if we can picture to ourselves without shrinking those horrid scenes which ensue,

"Where the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range,
With conscience wide as hell,"

we ought yet to remember upon how many thousands such dreadful vengeance must have fallen, who can only be justly considered as common sufferers by the very acts of aggression of which Europe has such strong reason to complain, and how many thousands more age and incapacity exempted even from the possibility of having been sharers in the offence. It is impossible to look around upon this splendid capital without remembering the affecting plea which the Deity himself condescended to use with his vindictive prophet: "Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?" Least of all ought we to wish that any part of the British forces had been partakers in the horrid licence that must have followed on such a catastrophe, during which the restraints of discipline and the precepts of religion are alikeforgotten in the headlong course of privileged fury. It was observed of the veteran army of Tilly, that the sack of Magdeburg gave a death-blow to their discipline, and we know how the troops of France herself were ruined by that of Moscow. In every point of view, therefore, as well with regard to the agents as the sufferers, the averting the destruction of Paris, when it appeared almost inevitable, has added to the glories which the Duke of Wellington has acquired in this immortal campaign. For it is not to be denied, that to his wise and powerful interference, restraining the vindictive ardour of Blucher, yet accelerating, by his tone of decision, the reluctant surrender of Davoust, was chielly owing the timely arrangement of the articles of capitulation, in consequence of which the King of France again obtained possession of his capital, and the allied armies became the peaceful garrison of Paris.

By the time I reached the capital the political convulsions had entirely subsided, and the royal government, to all external appearance, was in as quiet an exercise of authority as if Louis XVIII. had never been dispossessed of the throne. But the public mind was not as yet accustomed to consider the change as permanent, being influenced and agitated by a thousand gloomy reports of plots and conspiracies, as the sea, after the storm has subsided, continues still to heave and swell with the impulse it has received. It was said, in particular, that Labédoyère, who had been found concealed in Paris, and there arrested, was agent of a conspiracy, in which the fédérés of the fauxbourgs, with the disbanded soldiers of the army of the north, were to be enlisted. One party of the conspirators were to wear the dress and arms of the Parisian National Guard, and so accoutred were to assault simultaneously the hotels of the Emperors of Austria and of Russia, of the King of Prussia, of Lord Castlereagh, of the Duke of Wellington, and of Blucher; while other bands, disguised in the uniforms of the allied troops, should storm the posts of the National Guard, and particularly those maintained at the palace of the Tuileries. That a project so wild and impraticable should have been seriously attempted, I can hardly credit; but that so many reckless and desperate men as were now in Paris were meditating something of peril and violence, is extremely probable, for at this very time all the guards maintained on the illustrious personages I have mentioned were on a sudden strongly reinforced, and unusual strictness was exercised by the sentinels in challenging those who approached their posts. In going home to my hotel upon this night, I was stopped and interrogated more than six times, and in a new language at each post. The word English was a sufficient answer upon every occasion. Indeed, the great and combined military force would have rendered any such conspiracy an effort of fruitless, though perhaps not bloodless, frenzy.

The internal duty of Paris is chiefly performed by the National Guard, who, in dress and appearance, remind me very much of the original or blue regiment of Edinburgh Volunteers. They furnish