ttracted by the novel spectacle
thus presented to them, and eager to participate in the pleasures of a
capital whose rejoicings, so far from being checked by the sad reverse
of fortune, were now at the highest pitch; and the city much more
resembled the gay resort of an elated people than a town occupied by
the troops of conquering enemies. The old soldier of the Empire alone
grieved in the midst of this general joy; with the downfall of Napoleon
died his every hope. The spirit of conquest, by which for so many years
the army had been intoxicated, was annihilated by the one line that
signed the treaty of Fontainebleau. Thus among the gay and laughing
groups that hurried onward might now and then be seen some veteran of
the Old Guard scowling with contemptuous look upon that fickle populace,
as eager to celebrate the downfall as ever they had been to greet the
glory of their nation.

Nothing more strikingly marked the incongruous host that filled the city
than the different guards of honour which were mounted at the several
hotels where officers and generals of distinction resided. At this time
the regulation was not established which prevailed somewhat later, and
gave to the different armies of the Allies the duty of mounting all the
guards in rotation. Thus at one door might be seen the tall cuirassier
of Austria, his white cloak falling in heavy folds over the flank and
haunches of his coal-black horse, looking like some Templar of old; at
another the plumed bonnet of a Highlander fluttered in the breeze, as
some hardy mountaineer paced to and fro, his grey eye and stern look
unmoved by the eager and prying gaze of the crowd that stopped to look
upon so strange and singular a costume. Here was the impatient schimmel
of some Hungarian hussar pawing the ground with restless eagerness, as
his gay dolman slashed with gold glittered in the sun. The Jager from
Bohemia, the deadly marksman with the long rifle, the savage Tartar
of the Ukraine devouring his meal on his guard, and turning his
dark suspicious eye around him, lest every passer-by might mean some
treachery--all denoted that some representative of their country dwelt
within; while every now and then the clank of a musket would be heard,
as a heavy _porte cochere_ opened to permit the passage of an equipage,
as strange and as characteristic as the guard himself. Here would issue
the heavy waggon of some German prince, with emblazoned panels and
scarlet hammer-doth,