e people in the
streets appeared sulky and stupefied: here and there I noticed groups
of the higher classes evidently discussing the events of the moment.

How strange humanity would look in our day in the costume of the first
empire. The ladies wore very scanty and short skirts, which left
little or no waist; their bonnets were of exaggerated proportions, and
protruded at least a foot from their faces, and they generally carried
a fan. The men wore blue or black coats, which were baggily made, and
reached down to their ankles; their hats were enormously large, and
spread out at the top.

I dined the first day of my entrance into Paris at the Cafe Anglais, on
the Boulevard des Italiens, where I found to my surprise several of my
brother officers. I recollect the charge for the dinner was about
one-third what it would be at the present day. I had a potage,
fish--anything but fresh, and, according to English predilections and
taste, of course I ordered a beef-steak and pommes de terre. The wine,
I thought, was sour. The dinner cost about two francs. The theatres at
this time, as may easily be imagined, were not very well attended. I
recollect going to the Francais, where I saw for the first time the
famous Talma. There was but a scanty audience; in fact all the best
places in the house were empty.

It may easily be imagined that, at a moment like this, most of those
who had a stake in the country were pondering over the great and real
drama that was then taking place. Napoleon had fled to Rochfort; the
wreck of his army had retreated beyond the Loire; no list of killed and
wounded had appeared; and, strange to say, the official journal of
Paris had made out that the great Imperial army at Waterloo had gained
a victory. There were, nevertheless, hundreds of people in Paris who
knew to the contrary, and many were already aware that they had lost
relations and friends in the great battle.

Louis XVIII. arrived, as well as I can remember, at the Tuileries on
the 26th of July, 1815, and his reception by the Parisians was a
singular illustration of the versatile character of the French nation,
and the sudden and often inexplicable changes which take place in the
feeling of the populace. When the Bourbon, in his old lumbering state
carriage, drove down the Boulevards, accompanied by the Garde du Corps,
the people in the streets and at the windows displayed the wildest joy,
enthusiastically shouting "Vive le Roi!" a