he Diligence from Lyons
which met ours here at the Common resting-place. He was a Surgeon of the
Staff, returning from Egypt, by name Shute. We all three talked
together, and as loud as we could; the Company, I believe, thought us
strange Beings. We told him what we could of England in a short time, he
of the South, and we exchanged every Species of information, and were
sorry when it was necessary to part.

[Illustration: THE GUILLOTINE AT CHALON-SUR-SAONE.

_To face p. 43._]

We arrived at Lyons on the 14th, the Day of the Grand Fete. We saw the
Town Hall illuminated, and a Review on the melancholy Plains of
Buttereaux, the common Tomb of so many Lyonnese. Here we have remained
since, but shall probably be at Geneva on the 23rd. I lodge at the Hotel
de Parc looking into the Place de Ferreant.

The Landlady, to my great surprise, spoke to me in English very
fluently. She is also a very excellent Spaniard. She has seen better
days, her husband having been a Merchant, but the Revolution destroyed
him. She was Prisoner for some time at Liverpool, taken by a Privateer
belonging to Tarleton and Rigge, who, I am sorry to say, did not behave
quite so handsomely as they should, the private property not having been
restored.

Of all the Towns I have seen this has suffered most. All the Chateaux
and Villas in its most beautiful Environs are shut up. The fine Square
of St. Louis le Grand, then Belle Cour, now Place Buonaparte, is knocked
to pieces; the fine Statue is broken and removed, and nothing left that
could remind you of what it was.

I have been witness to a scene which, of course, my curiosity as a
Traveller would not let me pass over, but which I hope not to see
again--an Execution on the Guillotine. Charles saw a man suffer at
Chalons; we did not know till it was over, but the Machine was still
standing, and the marks of the Execution very recent. On looking out of
my window the morning after our arrival here, I saw the dreadful
Instrument in the Place de Ferreant, and on inquiry found that five men
were to be beheaded in the morning and two in the evening. They deserved
their fate; they had robbed some Farmhouses and committed some
cruelties. In England, however, they would probably have escaped, as the
evidence was chiefly presumptive. They were brought to the Scaffold from
the Prison, tied each with his arms behind him and again to each other;
they were attended by a Priest, not, however, in black, and a part