ess. It was also further rumoured that the guns commanding the
shore-exit had been spiked by active Shareholders anxious to protect
their property from destruction at all hazards, and were useless. When,
therefore at eleven o'clock, the second edition of the morning papers
announced that a French army was pouring through the Tunnel, and
occupying the neighbouring heights, at the rate of ten thousand men an
hour, the panic became indescribable. Nor did it diminish when it was
further known that the French Ambassador, leaving a threatening
ultimatum behind him, had that afternoon taken his departure for Paris.
The country flew to arms. Sir ARCHIBALD HARRISON hastily collected the
available force at Aldershot, and took up his position on the Hog's
Back, and awaited the approach of the enemy with 213 men, all told, and
three guns. They took no notice of him. At twelve the following day it
was known that the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, falling back on Sydenham, in
command of a handful of Volunteers and a squadron of the Household
Cavalry hurriedly got together, had capitulated in the Refreshment
Department.

The details of the disaster spread like wildfire. The consternation was
terrific. The LORD MAYOR went into hysterics, and was, by common
consent, removed to Colney Hatch, while an angry mob invaded the War
Office, and seizing any members of the Ordnance Committee they could lay
hold of, forthwith dragged them out, and lynched them in Pall Mall. That
same evening a French army, 350,000 strong, entered London in triumph.

A few outrages marked this occupation. The Nelson Column was thrown
down, Waterloo Bridge blown up, Piccadilly re-christened the Rue
Boulanger, and the whole of Madame TUSSAUD'S Collection seized as
National property.

So matters stood, but the cutting off of the food supply, thirty
shillings being charged at a West-End Club for a plate of indifferent
tinned-rabbit, soon brought matters to a crisis. The Cabinet that at the
first approach of the enemy, had instantly retired to the Island of
Lewis, came cautiously up to town and opening negotiations for peace
with the French Government, finally signed the Tottenham Court Road
treaty, and provided for the evacuation of the country by the invader.
The terms were stringent and somewhat severe. In addition to agreeing to
the cession of India, Australia, the Cape, Canada and all her
Mediterranean possessions, together with the division of her Fleet among
the Navies of