dozen dragoons, not as a prisoner, but as a master, the arbiter of nations. His lordship must be a little surprised to see in a city, whose inhabitants he so often represented as detained from the embrace of their lawful sovereign by the menace of bayonets, the standard of treason triumphant, and the busts and portraits of Napoleon every where displayed, at a moment when a division of English troops is encamped in the Elysian fields, when not a French soldier, excepting the loyal national guard, is to be seen in arms, and when the head of the imperial dynasty is a dethroned fugitive, uncertain of his fortunes and of his life.

If Lord Castlereagh were one of those men who can determine upon an action merely because it is good, without any reference to their former policy, and who dare to forget the shame of contrition in the utility of reform, he might yet be the benefactor of Europe. The countenances of statesmen, like the ways of Providence, are inscrutable; and though I longed to anticipate, from the short view which I caught of his lordship in his Berlin, the probable result of his arrival, a skill in physiognomy much greater than mine would have failed in guessing

at those

"News from all nations lumbering at his back,"

the complexion of which, either of joy or of grief, seemed not at all to have communicated itself to their bearer: Cowper says of his lettercarrier,

"To him indifferent, whether grief or joy."

LETTER XXXV.

Saturday, July s

So entirely was I wrapt up in the persua sion, that the truth of the present state of feeling in France need only be seen to carry to any mind the conviction of the injustice and impolicy of bearing back the Bourbons in triumph, over the trampled necks of Frenchmen, that I was bold enough to suppose a representation of facts, however faintly and imperfectly drawn, might not be totally lost even upon Lord Castlereagh, and might arrest his attention sufficiently to make him wait for better authority before he proceeded to decide. The contemplation of some such effort, desperate as you will think it when directed against the statesman who, three weeks before Louis decamped from his dominions, wondered at his majesty's surprising progress in popularity, had, however, entered into my head, and I was employed in the act of softening down the ridicule of an individual imploring mercy for eight and twenty millions, and praying for reprieve, if not for pardon, when

loud acclamations called me into the street, and saved me all further labour in vain, by presenting to me another revolution of handkerchiefs, and that triumph, which is so much the more easily and suddenly displayed, as every one carries an emblem of the party in his pocket. In short, a battalion of the national guards were passing with white flags, to the shouts of Vive le Roi. The streets were lined with the same troops, in white cockades; not a national colour was to be seen; the white flag was floating on the column of the grand army, and the windows glittered with women and white linen, My eyes were scarcely disenchanted, until I saw the Moniteur, with its former designation—again the only official journal; and read in that paper two ordonnances of Louis, by the grace of God, king of France and Navarre; dated the 21st year of his reign. The same king, I saw, was to enter Paris about three o'clock in the afternoon.

Napoleon is overthrown at the battle of Waterloo; he is compelled to abdicate by the representatives of the people. The conquerors arrive at the capital, to which they grant honourable terms of surrender, and respect the independence of an unfortunate nation. The Duke of Wellington, and the whole English army, behave with a moderation more noble than their VOL. II.

victory. The sovereigns promise solemnly to adhere to their declarations. The friends of freedom cherish every hope. Lord Castlereagh arrives; the curtain rises at once, and displays the triumphant personages of the drama, unmasked, and in the attitude of revenge and rage; whilst France appears, a conquered culprit, in chains, bound to the altar, and waiting for the blow. Her government is dissolved by force; her representatives are driven from their seats; the glittering ensigns of her former glory are torn down, and displaced by the banner of treason and disgrace, the pale memorial of defeat and slavery. The monarch who, if private virtues do not interfere with a policy too likely to be p...ued, may exercise the despotism of a domestic master, and the severity of a foreign conqueror, may treat her children as slavishly as if they were his own, and as unsparingly as if they did not belong to him,-is re-armed with authority, and intrusted with the infliction of every punishment, which is rendered more intolerable as it follows upon the hope of pardon, and the mockery of reprieve. It was reserved for the return of the father of his people, to inform the inhabitants of Paris that they are put into the hands of a Prussian governor, a general Muffling, who tells them so in a proclamation, which is couched in terms of menace; and which appears by the side of the