Paris is in despair.
Paris is in furious exultation. How am I to understand all this? Even
in his postscript he tells me, in one breath, that the whole of the
strong places in our front are filled with national guards, and that
no less than seven corps of troops of the line are prepared to fight
us in the plains of Champagne; and that we have only to push on to
take the towns--charge the troops of the line to see them
disperse--and advance within ten leagues of Paris to extinguish the
rebellion, set the royal family free, and restore the monarchy."

The mysterious letter was handed round our circle in succession, and
seemed equally beyond comprehension to us all. We had yet to learn the
temperament of a capital, where every half-hour produced a total
change of the popular mind. The letter, fantastically expressed as it
was, conveyed the true condition of the hour. The picture was true,
but the countenance changed every moment. He might as well have given
the colours of cloud.

I had now entered on a course of adventure the most exciting of all
others, and at the most exciting time of life. But all the world round
me was in a state of excitement. Every nation of Europe was throwing
open its armoury, and preparing its weapons for the field. The troops
invading France were palpably no more than the advanced guards of
Prussia and Austria. Even with all my inexperience, I foresaw that the
war would differ from all the past; that it would be, not a war of
tactics, but a war of opinion; that not armies, but the people
marshalled into hosts, would be ultimately the deciders of the
victory; and that on whichever side the popular feeling was more
serious, persevering, and intense, there the triumph would be gained.
I must still confess, however, in disparagement to my military
sagacity, that I was totally unprepared for the gallant resistance of
the French recruits. What can they do without officers?--ten thousand
of whom had been noblesse, and were now emigrants? What can they do
without a commissariat, what can they do without pay, and who is to
pay them in a bankrupt nation? Those were the constant topics at
headquarters. We were marching to an assured victory. France was at an
end. We should remodel the Government, and teach the _sans culottes_
the hazard of trying the trade of politicians.

There was but one man in the camp who did not coincide in those
glittering visions. Let me once more do justice to a prince whose
ch