ith feather trimming and looped with diamonds, sabres with
ivory scabbards encrusted with topaz and turquoise, replaced the simple
costumes of the Revolutionary era as rapidly as did the high-sounding
titles of "Excellence" and "Monseigneur" the unpretending designation of
"citoyen." Still, the military feature of the land was in the ascendant;
in the phrase of the day, it was the "mustache" that governed. Not a
street but had its group of officers, on horseback or on foot; regiments
passed on duty, or arrived from the march, at every turn of the way. The
very rabble kept time and step as they followed, and the warlike spirit
animated every class of the population. All these things ministered to
my enthusiasm, and set my heart beating stronger for the time when the
career of arms was to open before me. This, if I were to judge from all
I saw, could not now be far distant. The country for miles around
Paris was covered with marching men, their faces all turned eastward;
orderlies, booted and splashed, trotted rapidly from street to street;
and general officers, with their aides-de-camp, rode up and down with a
haste that boded preparation.

My mind was too full of its own absorbing interests to make me care to
visit the theatre; and having dined in a cafe on the Boulevard, I turned
towards the general's quarters in the hope of finding him arrived. As I
entered the Rue de Rohan, I was surprised at a crowd collected about the
door, watching the details of packing a travelling carriage which stood
before it. A heavy fourgon, loaded with military chests and boxes,
seemed also to attract their attention, and call forth many a surmise as
to its destination.

"Le Petit Caporal has something in his head, depend upon it," said a
thin, dark-whiskered fellow with a wooden leg, whose air and gesture
bespoke the old soldier; "the staff never move off, extra post, without
a good reason for it."

"It is the English are about to catch it this time," said a
miserable-looking, decrepit creature, who was occupied in roasting
chestnuts over an open stove. "Hot, all hot! messieurs et mesdames!
real 'marrons de Nancy,'--the true and only veritable chestnuts with a
truffle flavor. _Sacristi!_ now the sea-wolves will meet their match!
It is such brave fellows as you, monsieur le grenadier, can make them
tremble."

The old pensioner smoothed down his mustache, and made no reply.

"The English, indeed!" said a fat, ruddy-faced woman, with a