y, confused, desolate air of a large auction room, after a
day's sale. Before this, the visitors had walked down its profound
length with a sense of respect on their minds, influencing them to
preserve silence and decorum, as they contemplated the majestic
pictures; but decency and quiet were dispelled when the signal was given
for the breaking up of the establishment. It seemed as if a nation had
become ruined through improvidence, and was selling off.

"The guarding of the Louvre was committed by turns to the British and
Austrians, while this process lasted. The Prussians said that they had
done their own business for themselves, and would not now incur odium
for others. The workmen being incommoded by the crowds that now rushed
to the Louvre, as the news spread of the destruction of its great
collection, a military order came that no visitors should be admitted
without permission from the foreign commandant of Paris. This direction
was pretty much adhered to by the sentinels as far as the exclusion of
the French, but the words _Je suis Anglais_, were always sufficient to
gain leave to pass from the Austrians: our own countrymen were rather
more strict, but, in general, foreigners could, with but little
difficulty, procure admission. The Parisians stood in crowds around the
door, looking wistfully within it, as it occasionally opened to admit
Germans, English, Russians, &c., into a palace of their capital from
which they were excluded. I was frequently asked by French gentlemen,
standing with ladies on their arms, and kept back from the door by the
guards, to take them into their own Louvre, under my protection as an
unknown foreigner! It was impossible not to feel for them in these
remarkable circumstances of mortification and humiliation; and the
agitation of the French public was now evidently excessive. Every
Frenchman looked a walking volcano, ready to spit forth fire. Groups of
the common people collected in the space before the Louvre, and a
spokesman was generally seen, exercising the most violent
gesticulations, sufficiently indicative of rage, and listened to by the
others, with lively signs of sympathy with his passion. As the packages
came out, they crowded round them, giving vent to torrents of _pestes_,
_diables_, _sacres_, and other worse interjections.

"Wherever an Englishman went, in Paris, at this time, whether into a
shop or a company, he was assailed with the exclamation, _'Ah! vos
compatriotes!'