nd irregular. It is here, accordingly, that the French gardening appears in all its genuine deformity; and that its straight walks and endless fountains display a degree of formality and art, destructive of the peculiar beauty by which the scene is distinguished. These gardens, however, were the favourite and private walks of the Emperor;-it was here that he meditated those schemes of ambition which were destined to shake the established thrones of Europe;-it was under the shade of this luxuriant foliage that

f the river were clothed. The appearance of this bivouack, dimly discerned through the rugged stems of lofty trees, or half-hid by the luxuriant branches which obscured the view;-the picturesque and varied aspect of the plain covered with waggons, and all the accompaniments of military service;-the columns of smoke rising from the fires with which it was interspersed, an

long this terrace is the finest spectacle which the vicinity of Paris has to present. It is backed along its whole extent by the extensive forest of St Germain, the foliage of which overhangs the road, and in the recesses of which you can occasionally discern those beautiful peeps which form the peculiar characteristic of forest scenery. The steep bank which descends to the river is clothed with orchards and vineyards in all the luxuriance of a southern climate; and in front, there is spread beneath your feet the wide plain in which the Seine wanders, whose waters are descried at in

y fury, and formed into a barrack for the republican soldiers, the marks of whose violence are still visible in the faded splendour of its magnificent apartments. They still shew, however, the favourite rooms of Marie Antoinette, the walls of which are covered with the finest mirrors, and some remains of the furniture are still preserved, which even the licentious fury of the French army seems to have been afraid to violate. The gardens on which all the riches of France, and all the efforts of art, were so long lavished, present a painful monument of the depravity of tast

, proud, and haughty in her manner, and unconciliating in her ordinary address. Her time was much spent in private, in the exercise of religious duty, or in needle-work and drawing; and her favourite sea

,-occupied entirely in the employment of gardening, or in alleviating the distresses of those around her. The shrubberies and gardens were laid out with singular beauty, in the English taste, and contained a vast variety of rare flowers, which she had for a long period been collecting. These shrubberies were to her the source of never-failing enjoyment; she spent many hours in them every day, working herself, or superintending the occupations of others; and in these delightful occupations seemed to return again to all the innocence and happiness of you

ry country of Europe: Rising through all the gradations of rank through which he passed, she everywhere commanded the esteem and regard of all those who had access to admire her private virtues; and when at length she was raised to the rank of Empress, she graced the imperial throne with all the charities and virtues of a humbler station. She bore, with unexampled magnanimity, the sacrifice of power and of influence which she

horizon. The cultivation continues, with all its uniformity, to the very foot of the ridge; but the moment you pass the boundaries of the forest, you find yourself surrounded at once with all the wildness and luxuriance of natural scenery. The surface of the ground is broken and irregular, rising at times into vast piles of shapeless rocks, and enclosing at others small vallies, in which the wood grows in endless beauty, unblighted by the chilling blasts of northern climates. In these vallies, the oak, the ash, and the beech, exhibit the peculiar magnificence of forest scenery, while, on the neighbouring hills, the birch waves its airy foliage round the dark masses of rock which terminate the view. Nothing can be conceived more striking than the scenery which this variety of rock and wood produce in every part of this r

wth of the Forest,-whose lowest boughs stretch above the top of the wood which surrounds them,-and whose decayed summits afford a striking contrast to the young and luxuriant foliage with which their stems are enveloped. When we visited Fontainbleau, it was occupied by the old imperial guard, which still remained in that station after the abdication of Bonaparte; and we frequently met parties, or detached stragglers of them, wandering in th

in his writing-chamber during the greater part of the day, and walked for two hours on the terrace, in close conversation with Marshal Ney. Several officers of the imperial guard repeated the speech which he made to his troops on leaving them after his abdication of the throne, which was precisely what appeared in the English newspapers. So great was the enthusiasm produced by this speech among the soldiers present, that it was received with shouts and cries of Vive l'Empereur, A Paris, A Paris! and when he departed under the custody of the allied Commissioners, the whole army wept; there was not a dry eye in the multitude who were assembled to witness his departure. Even the imperial guard, who had been trained in scenes of suffering from their first entry into the service-who had been inured for a long course of years to the daily sight of human misery, and had constantly made a sport of all the afflictions which are fitted to move the human heart, shared in the general grief; they s

hey dreaded them more as friends than the Cossacks themselves as enemies. They seemed to harbour the most unbounded resentment against the people of this country; their countenances bore the expression of the strongest enmity as we walked along their line, and we frequently heard them mutter among themselves, in the most emphatic manner, Sacre Dieu, voila des Anglois!-Whatever the atrocity of their conduct, however, might have been, to the people of their own, as well as every other country, it was impossible not to feel the strongest emotion at the sight of the veteran soldiers whose exploits had so long rivetted the attention of all who felt an interest in the civilized world. These were the men w

es, and you pass at once into the utmost wildness of desolated nature. The foreground is broken by barren rock, or covered with the beautiful forms of the weeping birch; immediately below there lies a lonely valley, strewed with masses of grey stone, without the slightest trace of human habitation, while, in the farthest distance, the forest is discerned, clothing the sides of those broken ridg

sive view which is to be met with at its summit. The heights of Belleville, however, are varied with wood, with orchards, vineyards, and gardens, interspersed with cottages and villas, and cultivated with the utmost care. There are few inclosures, but the whole extent of the ground is thickly studded with walnuts, fruit-trees, and forest timber, which, from a distance, give it the appearance of one continued wood. On a nearer approach, however, you find it intersected in every direction by small paths, which wind among the vineyards, or through the woods with which the hills are covered, and pr

yed in a robe of softer colours, and beams with the expression of a gentler character. She there appears surrounded by the luxuriance of vegetable life: she pours forth her bounty with a profusion which the partizans of utility would call prodigality, and covers the earth with a splendour of beauty, which serves no other purpose than to minister to the delight of human existence. Am

be discovered through the openings of the wood with which the foreground is enriched, and present the capital at that pleasing distance, when the minuter part of the buildings are concealed, when its prominent features alone are displayed, and the whole is softened by the obscure light which distance throws over the objects of nature. To an English mind, the effect of the whole is infinitely increased, by the animating associations with which this sce

wholly destroyed, and the interior of the rooms broken by the balls which seemed to have pierced every part of the buildings. So thickly were the houses in some places covered with these marks, that it appeared almost incredible how any one could have escaped from so destructive a fire. Even the beautiful gardens with which the slope of the heights are adorned, and the inmost recesses of the wood of Romainville, bore throughout the marks of the desperate struggles which they had lately witnessed, and exhibited the symptoms of fracture or destruction in the

he houses of the peasants had been wholly destroyed by the allied armies, we had occasion frequently to observe and admire the equanimity of mind with which these poor people bore the loss of all their property. For an extent of 30 miles in one direction, towards the North of Champagne, every house near the great road had-been burnt or pillaged for the firewood which it contained, both by the French and the allied armies, and the people were everywhere compelled to sleep in the open air. When we spoke to them on the subject of their losses, they answered with smiles, "Tout est detruit: tout est brulè, tout, tout;" and seemed to derive amusement from the completeness of the devastation. The men were everywhere rebuilding their fallen walls, with a cheerfu