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be governor of Paris, and says, that his general Müffling shall take care to see that the Frenchman does not infringe upon his authority. I understand that the Duke of Wellington is exceedingly concerned at these excesses, but says, very naturally, that he cannot prevent them, unless he should draw out his army to fight the Prussian marshal. What may seem extraordinary is, that the Prussians are in a state of extreme insubordination, and even talk not so much of the king as of the cause for which they are fighting. This, you may conclude, is to avenge themselves of the French. They quite forget, as all our declaimers in England as well as in Germany are in the habit of doing, that the Prussians were the first aggressors. The invasion of the Duke of Brunswick, the coalition of Pilnitz, are wiped from the page even of contemporary history: we only talk of revenging the wrongs of Germany, as if France had not received the original injury.

The Prussians were eager to have a solemn entry of their army into Paris, which the English commander in chief refused for his own army; but, when applied to by Marshal Blucher, of course could only say, that he was to follow his own inclinations. In consequence of this, about fifty thousand Prussians entered by the

boulevards, and over the bridges, in the forenoon of the 7th, the day after the capitulation; many battalions traversed the streets only to swell the procession, as they quitted the town immediately.

Such of the English troops as were to be quartered in the city came in privately at six in the morning. It was at first hoped, that no soldiers would be quartered in private houses; but that expectation was at once destroyed, and the present anxiety of the inhabitants is only directed to being favoured with English instead of any other lodgers. The conduct of our troops is such as to claim and to gain for them this preference. It is impossible for conquerors to inspire fewer regrets-not so our allies: wherever they have appeared, they have carried with them terror, and left behind a disgust fatal to the cause of the monarch whom they have protected. Several parts of the country which they have occupied, or traversed, have cooled in their attachment to the Bourbons, whose return has been accompanied with desolation and rapine. The royalist of my acquaintance, the most decided in his abhorrence of Napoleon, told me a day or two ago, that the French had nothing left for them but to try a Sicilian vespers. The king gives no sign of authority,

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except such as is directed against his own subjects, over whom he has acquired, by his restoration, the power of oppression, but not of defence. Every hour adds strength to that persuasion, which, whether just or not, if England, at least, could have anticipated, she would not have gone to war-that the Bourbons are not the sovereigns fit for France, and that they will retain the throne only so long as she shall be treated as a conquered country. Their minority will not be sufficient to defend them without foreign aid, and has not been augmented by their success. I question whether it has not been diminished. The army of La Vendée has, it is reported, offered to join with the force behind the Loire, to prevent that dismemberment of the country which is now supposed likely to ensue. Whether this be true or not, the rumour is sufficient to show the rising indignation of the people, which, as the cause of the Bourbons is so entirely connected with the conduct of the allies, will be directed most probably against the person and family of the restored monarch. One step might alter the case, but that cannot be expected from a sexagenary, disqualified by disease for the requisite activity; and, perhaps, contented to reign quietly on any terms, rather than

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hazard his throne by securing the love of his nation at the expense of the friendship of his allies.

If, upon discovering the determination on the part of the foreigners to listen to none of his intercessions, (for of course he must have made intercessions in behalf of his people), he had quitted Paris suddenly, had joined his army at Orleans, had hoisted the tri-coloured standard, and had called upon the national guards, and all the troops of his kingdom to rise and put themselves in a position which might enable him to treat for peace on terms not dishonourable to their country and their king-then, indeed, he would have identified himself with his subjects, as he is now identified with their enemies, and even his guilty victory would have been forgiven and forgotten in his first struggle, whether effectual or not, for the independence of his nation and of his crown. The moral influence of Paris would, indeed, render the abandonment of it an extreme measure; but the ruin of the capital might be the saving of the country, which has now to lament the sacrifices made to preserve the corruptest and most unhealthy member of the whole body politic. It must move the indignation of any one to find the inhabitants of this city trembling at the threatened fall of a

column where they should weep over their prostrate liberties, and pray rather for the destruction of those ornaments, whose removal would direct their whole solicitude to the only worthy objects of their care, and would, in any future struggle, point all their efforts to the defence of their external and internal independence-those true monuments of national happiness and glory, which, as they reside not in marble nor in brass, are circumscribed by no walls, and fixed to no spot, are not to be overthrown by the fall of a city, nor the desolation of a province. The humane mind does not allow itself to make the destruction of a town such as Paris an article of speculative calculation, lest it should be tempted to regret that the only alternative which could save the independence of the nation had not been tried; but, whether a resistance under the walls of the capital had been victorious or not, desperation or victory, the fall or the salvation of the city, would have left the country itself less at the mercy of her conquerors and her king, than she is at this moment of uncertainty. I will tell you in this place, that, notwithstanding all the imputations of treacheries and treason cast upon the Duke of Otranto and the executive government in consequence of the capitulation, that measure

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