he left his lodgings at a quarter
before seven o'clock; how he crossed the Place Vendome, and saw a
sentinel pacing at the foot of Napoleon's Column; how he observed that
the sentinel had the misfortune to have a hole in his greatcoat, which
affords an opportunity too good to be lost for quoting that
little-known verse of Burns's--'If there's a hole in a' your coats,'
&c.; how he then, being done with looking at the sentinel, goes on his
way, crosses the Boulevard des Italiens, and enters the Rue de la
Chaussee d'Antin; how he looks about him till he sees No. 50, and,
having spoken a word to the door-keeper, goes up stairs. Then, he
informs his readers that he rang the doctor's bell; and how, the door
being opened by a boy in livery, he was shewn into a drawing-room.
Here, he tells us, he sat down in company with a number of other
patients, waiting their turn to be called by the doctor. Vastly
amusing all this, but nothing to what follows:--'For a considerable
time we all sat in mute silence, and, indeed, in our respective
attitudes, almost motionless, save that every now and then a
gentleman, and sometimes a lady, would arise, slowly walk diagonally
across the carpet to a corner close to the window, press with his or
her hand the top of a little mahogany machine that looked like an
umbrella-stand, look down into it, and then very slowly, at a sort of
funereal pace, walk back. All this I bore with great fortitude for
some time: at last, overpowered by curiosity, I arose, walked slowly
and diagonally across the carpet, pushed the thing in the corner
exactly as I had seen everybody else push it, looked just as they did,
downwards, where, close to the floor, I beheld open, in obedience to
the push I had given from the top, the lid of a spitting-box, from
which I very slowly, and without attracting the smallest observation,
walked back to my chair.' Wonderful power of description this!

Having had the honour of receiving an invitation to dinner at the
Elysee, Sir Francis of course goes at the appointed hour, seven
o'clock. The following is his account of the affair. After passing
through the entrance-hall, 'I slowly walked through two or three
handsome rooms _en suite_, full of interesting pictures, into a
drawing-room, in which I found assembled, in about equal proportions,
about fifty very well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, the latter being
principally officers, whose countenances, not less clearly than the
decorations