et noises,
and the increased rattle of the wheels over the unequal pavement. We
started up just as, turning round in his saddle and pointing with his
long whip to either side of him, the fellow called out--

'Paris, Messieurs, Paris! This is Faubourg St. Denis; there before you
lies the Rue St. Denis. _Sacristi!_ the streets are as crowded as at
noonday.'

By this time we had rubbed the sleep from our eyelids and looked
about us, and truly the scene before us was one to excite all our
astonishment. The Quartier St. Denis was then in the occupation of
the Austrian troops, who were not only billeted in the houses, but
bivouacked in the open streets--their horses picketed in long files
along the _pave_, the men asleep around their watch-fires, or burnishing
arms and accoutrements beside them. The white-clad cuirassier from the
Danube, the active and sinewy Hungarian, the tall and swarthy Croat were
all there, mixed up among groups of peasant girls coming in to market
with fowls and eggs. Carts of forage and waggons full of all manner of
provisions were surrounded by groups of soldiers and country-people,
trading amicably with one another as though the circumstances which had
brought them together were among the ordinary events of commerce.

Threading our way slowly through these, we came upon the Jager
encampment, their dark-green uniform and brown carbines giving that
air of _sombre_ to their appearance so striking after the steel-clad
cuirassier and the bright helmets of the dragoons. Farther on, around
a fountain, were a body of dismounted dragoons, their tall colbacks
and scarlet trousers bespeaking them Polish lancers; their small but
beautifully formed white horses pawed the ground, and splashed the
water round them, till the dust and foam rose high above them. But
the strangest of all were the tall, gigantic figures, who, stretched
alongside of their horses, slept in the very middle of the wide street.
Lifting their heads lazily for a moment, they gazed on us as we passed,
and then lay down again to sleep. Their red beards hung in masses far
down upon their breasts, and their loose trousers of a reddish dye but
half concealed boots of undressed skin. Their tall lances were piled
around them; but these were not wanting to prove that the savage,
fierce-looking figures before us were the Cossacks of the Don, thus
come for many a hundred mile to avenge the slaughter of Borodino and the
burning of Moscow. As we penetr