ch as very evil folk, and as we only heard of them in connection
with fightings and slaughterings, by land and by sea, it was natural
enough to think that they were vicious by nature and ill to meet with.
But then, after all, they had only heard of us in the same fashion, and
so, no doubt, they had just the same idea of us. But when we came to go
through their country, and to see their bonny little steadings, and the
douce quiet folk at work in the fields, and the women knitting by the
roadside, and the old granny with a big white mutch smacking the baby to
teach it manners, it was all so home-like that I could not think why it
was that we had been hating and fearing these good people for so long.
But I suppose that in truth it was really the man who was over them that
we hated, and now that he was gone and his great shadow cleared from the
land, all was brightness once more.

We jogged along happily enough through the loveliest country that ever I
set my eyes on, until we came to the great city, where we thought that
maybe there would be a battle, for there are so many folk in it that if
only one in twenty comes out it would make a fine army. But by that
time they had seen that it was a pity to spoil the whole country just
for the sake of one man, and so they had told him that he must shift for
himself in the future. The next we heard was that he had surrendered to
the British, and that the gates of Paris were opened to us, which was
very good news to me, for I could get along very well just on the one
battle that I had had.

But there were plenty of folk in Paris now who loved Boney; and that was
natural when you think of the glory that he had brought them, and how he
had never asked his army to go where he would not go himself. They had
stern enough faces for us, I can tell you, when we marched in, and we of
Adams' brigade were the very first who set foot in the city. We passed
over a bridge which they call Neuilly, which is easier to write than to
say, and through a fine park--the Bois de Boulogne, and so into the
Champs d'Elysees. There we bivouacked, and pretty soon the streets were
so full of Prussians and English that it became more like a camp than a
city.

The very first time that I could get away I went with Rob Stewart, of my
company--for we were only allowed to go about in couples--to the Rue
Miromesnil. Rob waited in the hall, and I was shown upstairs; and as I
put my foot over the mat, there was