more singular, as it does not appear to us to be connected
with strong or general affection or gratitude for any particular
individual. It was not the fame of any one General but the general
honour of the French arms, about which they seemed anxious. We never met
with a Frenchman, of any rank, or of any political persuasion, who
considered the French army as fairly overcome in the campaign of 1814;
and the shifts and contrivances by which they explained all the events
of the campaign, without having recourse to that supposition, were
wonderfully ingenious. The best informed Frenchmen whom we met in Paris,
even those who did not join in the popular cry of treason and corruption
against Marmont, regarded the terms granted by Alexander to their city,
as a measure of policy rather than of magnanimity. They uniformly
maintained, that the possession of the heights of Belleville and
Montmartre did not secure the command of Paris: that if Marmont had
chosen, he might have defended the town after he had lost these
positions; and that, if the Russians had attempted to take the town by
force, they might have succeeded, but would have lost half their army.
Indeed, so confidently were these propositions maintained by all the
best informed Frenchmen, civil or military, royalist of imperialist,
whom we met, that we were at a loss whether to give credit to the
statement uniformly given us by the allied officers, that the town was
completely commanded by those heights, and might have been burnt and
destroyed, without farther risk on the part of the assailants, after
they were occupied. The English officers, with whom we had an
opportunity of conversing on this subject, seemed divided in opinion
regarding it; and we should have hesitated to which party to yield our
belief, had not the conduct of Napoleon and his officers in the campaign
of the present year, the extraordinary precautions which they took to
prevent access to the positions in question, by laying the adjacent
country under water, and fortifying the heights themselves, clearly
shewn the importance, in a military point of view, which is really
attached to them.

The credulity of the French, in matters connected with the operations of
their armies, often astonished us. It appeared to arise, partly from the
scarcity of information in the country; from their having no means of
confirming, correcting, or disproving the exaggerated and garbled
statements which were laid before the