Lancers, in
stained white cloaks, with their murderous weapons couched. I should like
those who admire the Horse Guards--the prancing steeds, the shining casques
and cuirasses, the massive epaulets and dangling sabres, the trim
mustache, irreproachable buckskins, and dazzling jack-boots--to have seen
these cuirassiers gallop by: their sorry horses covered with mud and
sweat; their haggard faces blackened with gunpowder; their shabby
accoutrements and battered helmets. The bloody swords, the dirt, the
hoarse voices, unkempt beards. Glorious war! I think the sight of those
horrible troopers would do more to cure its admirers than all the orators
of the Peace Society could do in a twelve-month!

We dined--without the ladies, of course--and sat up until very late; the
cannon and musketry roaring meanwhile, till nearly midnight. Then it
stopped--

To recommence again, however, on the next (Friday) morning. Yesterday they
had been fighting all day on the Boulevards, from the Madeleine to the
Temple. To-day, they were murdering each other at Belleville, at La
Chapelle St. Denis, at Montmartre. Happily the firing ceased at about nine
o'clock, and we heard no more.

I do not, of course, pretend to give any account of what really took place
in the streets on Thursday; how many barricades were erected, and how they
were defended or destroyed. I do not presume to treat of the details of
the combat myself, confining what I have to say to a description of what I
really saw of the social aspect of the city. The journals have given full
accounts of what brigades executed what manoeuvres, of how many were shot
to death here, and how many bayoneted there.

On Friday at noon, the embargo on the cabs was removed--although that on
the omnibuses continued; and circulation for foot passengers became
tolerably safe, in the Quartier St. Honore, and on the Boulevards. I went
into an English chemist's shop in the Rue de la Paix, for a bottle of
soda-water. The chemist was lying dead up-stairs, shot. He was going from
his shop to another establishment he had in the Faubourg Poissoniere, to
have the shutters shut, apprehending a disturbance. Entangled for a moment
on the Boulevard, close to the Rue Lepelletier, among a crowd of
well-dressed persons, principally English and Americans, an order was
given to clear the Boulevard. A charge of Lancers was made, the men firing
their pistols wantonly among the flying crowd; and the chemist was shot
de