Paris revisited, in 1815, by way of Brussels: including a walk over the field of battle at Waterloo

Chapter I

Introductioo on board a Margate Hoy : Englisli character of a watering place: description of a citizen and his family on an excursion to the Coast: meagre air of a Continental sea-port, compared with the appearance of Margate and Ramsgate : description of the company on board a Margate Hoy. Page 1 — 8

Chapter II

Departure from Ramsgate : view from the sea : fall of night: tirst appearance of Ostend : two soldiers' wives : the harbour of Ostend : deference shewn to British officers, and genera! respect paid to the English : this traced to their influx into these foreign places : responsibility incurred by England : the inhabitants of Ostend, and the military stationed there. 9 — 1 7

Chapter III

Canal boats to Bruges : pleasant circumstances attending the passage : description of the passengers on board a schuyt : an old organ-grinder and his lively grandson,— their playing on deck : description of what was going on below : wives of British sergeants and sergeant-majors : anecdotes of two Dutch sailors : arrival at Bruges : botel-hook full of British names : meeting with a Flemish farmer : allusions to Flanders as frequently the theatre of wars : the boat from Bra-

IV CONTENTS.

ges to Ghent : a night party : a Flemish schoolmaster : stoppage for refreshment : the morning : Belgian soldiers: spire of Giient : boys at the landing place. 18 — 29

Chapter IV

Empty look of Ghent, and the Flemish towns i system of Buonaparte : his sale of a church at Utrecht : rise and fall of the Flemish cities ; dislike between the inhabitants of Belgium and the Dutch : intentions of the rulers of the present day : popularity of the hereditary Prince of Orange ^ publick hankering after Buonaparte's system : tendencies to a much better feeling : regard for the English in the Netherlands.

30—43

Chapter V

Heavy rain in this country: description of the miserable carriages : self-complacency of an English servant : anecdote of an Irish officer: first ajjpearance of Brussels : the wood of Soignies : ill-managed hotel at Brussels : first view of the streets of Brussels full of recovering British soldiers : the military hospital : general air of Brussels : its highly excited feeling : popularity of the Britisli military : affecting circumstances increase the kindness of the people of Brussels : danger to virtue arising from a virtuous source : description of the females of Brussels : the system of female manners here : the park of Brussels : its interesting crowds : wounded officers : fete of the King of the Netherlands : mixture of the soldiery of various nations: dreadful consequences of the military getting the U'lper hand: the military chHracter : description of Brussels, and the country around it, 44—65

CONTENTS.

Chapter VI

The sounding of the bugle on the morning of the 16th June: military opinions: description of the coUection of the troops, and of iheir march from Brussels: warm-hearted feeling of the town's-people: the mirch: passing by of the Duke of Wellington : first sound of the guns: the field of Qiiatre Bras : animation of the officers : the Duke of Wellington's appearance in the field : his conduct there : inflated behaviour of the French dragoons : anecdotes of the engagement: the retreat of the 17th: bravery of our officers : difference between the French and British soldier : battle of the 18th: Shaw, the Life Guardsmap : the Scotch Grays : the 92d: the courage of our troops requires much management on the part of the commander : the cavalry charges : anecdotes of the engagement : ferocity of the French to their prisoners : anecdote : death of Shaw : women found dead : the Duke of Wellington's feelings of confidence : the last struggle for victory: arrival of the Prussians: route of the French: the Duke's return to his head-quarters : his entrance into Brussels : descriijtion of the state of that city during the battles : description of the road from the field : the zealous assistance afforded by all ranks of the people to the wounded : expression of the grati= tude due for this. 66—100

Chapter VII

The publick interest in England as to all that re= lates to these battles : its causes : their glorious and decisive nature : the value of pu'olick afleciions : merits of the rival generals and their troops

VI- CONTENTS.

discussed : first visit to a field of battle : graves and destroyed farm-houses of the plain of Waterloo : the road from Brussels to the village : its appearance : the hamlet of Mont St. Jean : sellers of the fragments of the battle : the Wellington tree : the devastated condition of the farm of La Haye Samte : its orchard full of graves : the road to the French position : the House of La Belle Alliance: its coarse character : inscriptions on lis walls: walk along the French line / to Hugouraont: its beautiful orchard wood : its shattered buildings : walk round by the British right: feeling on quitting the field : visit to the church at Waterloo : and the graves behind it: political reflections. 101 — 138

CHAPTER VIIL

A Belgian lady passenger in the Diligence to Mons : detachments of English on the road : anecdote of two Irishwomen : arrival at ,Mons : its fortifications : night-waik through the place •with the soldiers' wives : journey to Valenciennes : the village of Jemappe : arrival at Valenciennes before the gates were opened : its strength: wretched appearance of the country of France : its distressed villages : Prussian cavalry on the road.: reflections on the misery caused by war: the disbanded French soldiers seen on the road : the influence of Buonaparte's military system on the character of France : a young French soldier: dialogue with two Highlanders in Peronne: devastations on the road from PeroBDe to Paris. 139—154 eONTENTS. VII

Chapter IX

Arrival at the barrier of Paris : suggestions of the alteration that had taken place in regard to the circumstances of France : British sentinels at the harriers : British soldiers in the streets : discomposed state of feeling and opinion in Paris : dialogue in a bo,at: fete at St. Cloud: English Horse Guards superintending the people : a column of British infantry in the woods : piquets on the road : British guards on the Thuilleries : on the Palais Royal : remarkable features of the Palais Royal : military of all nations meet there : Parisian gambling-houses : the Palais Royal all for Buonaparte : quarrels between the Prussians and the French : Parisian stories : promenade of Coblentz : picturesque views from the garden of the Thuilleries : the dancers in the garden : the King's appearance at a window, and the people's enthusiastick behaviour : the French national character : contrast between the British and the French in the gardens : two Highland soldiers : violence used to a Frenchman who expressed hatred to the King : the caricatures in Paris : the applause of the air of Vive Heiiri Quatre in the theatres : two ballad singers : inquiry into the political sentiments of the French : sketch of the condition of Lefebvre Desnouettes under the Imperial government, and of his reduction under the Bourbons : — ^-the ruin qf all this class : source of the attachment of the military to Buonaparte : falsehoods current in the societies of the capital. 155 — 186

Chapter X

Doubts as to the determination of the Allies it4 regard to the Louvre : enormity of the French

I )

Viii * CONTENTS.

system of spoliation t the iicpes and claims of the French publick: cbuduptofthe P ossians : vauntings of the French: general ini<^rfst excited as to the fate of the Louvre, exertions of the various stgrtes to recover their pictures, &c. : — French ministry's reluciance to listen to applications : Taileyrand's taunting answer to Canova: determination of the powers to exert force : renewed applications to the Fiesiich government: entrance of an English guard into the Louvre : strarsge connoisseurs in the Louvre : impressive spectacle of taking posstssion of the gallery : the breaking up of the collection . the French kept out of the Louvre v\hile foreigners were admitted : violent rgitation oi the French publick : reports that Efigland was to take some of the statues : crowding to see the pictures before their dis!)ers30ii : removal of the Transfiguration: French female stu(ieuts : English females in the Louvre : residue of pictures left to the Gallery : removal of the statues : removal of the horses on the arch in the Place Carousel : extreme anger of the French : particularly of the losses sustained by France in her various publick establishments of works of art, scientifick specimens and curiosities: lists of the statues and other sculptures seized by Buonaparte in 1797 : list of the pictures seized by him: list of the MSS. books, curiosities, &:c. the propriety of the restorations considered as a mixed question of poliilcal and moral justice, and good taste. 187 — 236

CHAPTER XL

Unsatisfactory and uncertain political state of France : political remarks on the Bourbons : on Buonaparte : on the Allies : conclusion. 237 — 244 i

PAEIS REVISITED,

Chapter I

Xo commence the account of my excursion as the excursion itself commenced, 1 must invite the reader on board a Margate Hoy. A more dignified starting point may easily be fancied ; but none, probably, would so well answer the desirable purpose of exciting attention to the most striking peculiarities of our own country, just as we are on the point of encountering the features of one that is foreign. We may ransack the treatises of England's constitutional writers from one end to the other ; we may explore the mysteries and complications of her commerce and finance, — but these will not afford any one national lineament so characteristicallyand exclusively her own as a crowded Watering Place, situated within a moderate distance of the metropolis. As belonging to the place itself, must, of course, be included, the skilful and tempting processes of conveyance to and fro, as well as tha elaborate organization of its customs and amusements, and the extensive assortment of conditions, tempers, and tastes, presented by its company.

There is no counterpart to this curious spectacle in any history of former times, or of other people. Nothing like it either has been seen, or is to be seen, But amongst ourselves at the present period. The display of human intellect, the glories of war, the pomps of courts, and the luxuries of the rich, offer no very strong contrasts between the different ages and places of the world. Mankind have generally possessed some good poets, and many bad ones : the revels of palaces were as well known to the people of antiquity, as to the living generation, to set any example but a proper one : and the elegant caprices of a Grecian Beauty, and the gratifications of a Roman Bmi Vivant do not merit the contempt even of these enlightened days of musicmasters, millinery, and made-dishes. — But neither Greece nor Rome, can furnish us with a parallel to the enjoyment of an elderly London shop-keeper, — who, for eleven months of the year, looks at brick walls, rises early in the morning to arrange his shelves, and sits up late at night to post liis ledger,—- escaped, with the gladness of a young bird, for a ^eek or two, to stand on a chalk cliff and watch the waves of the sea, to ask questions about the tides of the fishermen, discuss the crops oX grass and turnips with the farmers, and finish the day, thus devoted to nature, with half-crown loo at the libraries ! — What edification and entertainment Jiave we lost, inasmuch as this illustration of national manners and individual humour, did not exist in Steele's time to furnish suggestions to be improved hj his exquisite genius !

The beauty of the exhibition consists in what some may be apt to imagine it wants,^ — a rich truth to nature, and a strong marking of specifick traits. The citizen, and the citizen's lady, are as entirely native in the bathing machine, as ia the counting-house, or the back parlour. The straw hat with enormoua brims, the showy umbrella held against the sun, the inordinate appetite for every thing rural, are 20 many indications of the confinement of Cheap- ^ide : — they have not a feeling for the country that tlpe^ not spring from, and suggest, a recollection of the city. The little boy by their side is made to walk with a cane, because people ought to look respectable when aAvay from home. The bow is carefully careless, because customers are nobody more than any body else here. The waiter is called in a stern tone, not from ill nature, but because those that can afford to pay their bill should be attended to, without distinction of persons. Their most distinguishing symptoms, however, are, a remarkable quickness of notice and accwacy of information relative to everj^ thing by which they are surrounded. Those who have ridiculed the emigrants from the capital, as ill-informed and blundering, concerning what is foreign to the track of their own habits and occupations, are inaccurate observers, and unqualified to relish what is nicest in character. A London family, that has been accustomed to niake a yearly voyage to Margate, will be found, even. to the young ladies that are released from boarding-school for the vacation, perfectly acquainted with the cant as well as technical names, given by the sailors to every turn of the river and every point of its banks.

They vvill cause one who has only been to the East Indies as a passenger, to blush for his ignorance of marine matters, as they taikof Sea-reacli, and Long-reach; —they well know when to look with the glass for the gibbets ;— they smile in pity if you call a sloop a ship, or seem puzzled when you hear that you are going at the rate of six knots. They eat unceasingly to vanquish any suspicion of being " affected by the motion;" but their great triumph is, when the crew come round to collect money from those despised beings who have not before seen the Nare light ! Papa, who is an old Margate-man^ is still more nautically erudite. He is ostentatiously familiar with the captain; puts on his night-cap pretty early in the afternoon, and talks with a wink of turning in : — he, every now and then, throws his eye from the compass in the binnacle to the vane on the mast-head, — and recommends a lady with a pale face to go to the leeward-side of the vessel, but to take care of the boom when she jibes. Moreover, he is equally loquacious and expert when he is fairly landed in Kent, and comes in contact with the labourers in the fields. He sees, in a moment, the promise of the young wheats, — regrets that the black crops are likely to be scanty, —-and praises, in the terms of a horse-dealer, the Dear Wheeler of the stage-coach that goes past, though he can perceive, with half an eye, that the poor thing's feet are tender through bad shoeing.

I dwell upon this portrait (perhaps too long) because, as I have before observed, it is one thoroughly and solely English : — it is no where else to be met with, and it is to be traced to qualities of national condition, indicating a degree of general advancement, that has not yet been attained elsewhere. I have been tempted to the description, in consequence of being forcibly impressed with the meagre, quiet, and empty air of the Continental Sea-port at which I arrived, comparing it with the bustling, jocund, full appearance of that which I had left but a few hours before. Large houses, scantily occupied ; gloomy unfurnished shops, silent streets, a sleepy, poor aspect characterize Ostend. At Margate and Ramsgate, how different was the general eflfect ! There every thing seemed overflowing ; the demand went far beyond thie means of accommodation, instead of lagging behind them; — business supplied pleasure, and pleasure gave circulation and vigour to business. It is only in England, and but lately there, that the intermingling of the different orders of society, and the intermeddling of one class of people with the proper habits of others, which constitute the life of a watering place, could occur. A very long and highly prosperous settlement of national institutions, and personal pursuits, is necessary, before any great number of individuals can have the power so to quit for a time their natural track, and respite their routine tasks : and an active, stout, and independent turn of thinking can alone account for the inclination to do so.

A German or a Frenchman landing at a spot in England such as has been described, and uninformed of its nature, could only suppose, that, in the country to which he had come, the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the miserable, were arranged so as to inhabit separate towns, and that he had happened to debark at a place appropriated to those who had drawn the luckiest casualties in the lottery of existence. Considering what he has quitted, he cannot but be greatly surprised, when he learns that the swarm before him is a medley formed of every description of the nation ; that the greater proportion of it is composed of persons of the middle ranks, who come from considerable distances, not more influenced by fashion, than competent to obey its dictates. A scene so utterly new to him, intimating a publick union, opulence, and intelligence, so far beyond what he has been accustomed to see the signs of, cannot but give him a high notion of the land on which he has just stepped, and is calculated to justify in his opinion all the accounts of her wealth, power, and spirit, which may have previously reached his ear.

But to return to our Margate Hoy, that we may prosecute our voyage. A party of commercial men occupied the principal table in the cabin, and amused themselves, after they had finished a sumptuous dinner and desert, which they brought on board nicely packed, with playing at five shilling whist, aail betiing highly on the various points Of the game. Their iced port, and cant phrases, — their pine-appJes, and city proverbs, assortetl curiously. A gentleman, who lost ten guineas with the greatest carelessness, turned sharply round, after laying down a bank note for live pounds before the v^'ianer, to beg of a person, whom he heard speak of going from Ranisgate to Ostend, to take over for him a small sample of sewing cottons,— " But, for God's sake," said he, " be very particular to explaining at the custom-house, that they are only samples, for otherwise I shall be put to the expense of a penny a-piece on the dozen balls, as harbour duty!"

An active, smart sailor, the upper leathers of whose shoes scarcely covered his toes, and whose black silk handkerchief was put on loosely, to shew his brown, but handsome throat, sat observing this party of players, with looks that shewed how eagerly he sympathized with the chances of the game, and how well inclined he was to share in the hazards of the adventure. He was a man turned of forty, but had all the light brisk air of sea foppery, which may often be observed in our tars, united with the indications of hardy habits, simple minds, and desperate spirits. He was returning, I found, to Margate, to see his wife and children, after an absence of ten years. He had belonged originally to one of the hoys, and soon became possessed of a boat of his own, but fell into rough hands, in consequence, as he said, with an arch wink, '•'■ of taking a trip across >, to fetch the old women a drop of ginJ^ The Excise seized his boat, its cargo, and himself: he lost four hundred and fifty pounds, which he had saved, and was sent on board a man of v^ar. He had been for several years cruizing on the American coast, and described pithily, but simply, the miseries of a cold unhealthy station. His ship had lost many of its men, and, as he said tins, bis own lungs were torn with a dry cough, which boded very fatally. It was impossible to hear this portentous signal, to look at the intelligent but dissolute and fierce countenance of the man, and listen to his stoiy, told in quaint, sometimes highly comick, and always very forcible language,™~without questioning, with feelings of regret, the value of that national system, to wkich he had become an unfortunate victim.

Herj was an individual utterly ruined in principles, constitution, and circumstances. He spoke bitterly of the treatment of the seamen by their officers, prophesied that our navy had seen its best days, and, while he shewed the most thorough contempt for the Americans, whom he described as cowards and lubbers, exulted in the idea that they were likely to be strengthened ag&icst England by multitudes of prime English sailors, who would seize with avidity any opportunity to escape from the lash, and low wages. It was quite clear that this man's testimony w^as strongly tinctured with the prejudices and various improper feelings of an irregular and unprincipled miod, composed of violent dispositions, and disappointed hopes ; but it is mere self-deception to set down as unv/orthy of notice all that may drop, as complaint or denunciation, from one so circumstanced. Those who exercise power, such is human nature, are quite as liable to fall into errour as these who are the objects of its exercise ; and the improprieties of the former are both the most dangerous, and the. most intolerable. The downfall of great states has usually been produced by a disregard of the sources of alienation, and the feeders of discontent, — by a bigotted and harsh obstinacy in favour of every thing that bears the port of authority and the features of prescription, heedless of their natural tendencies to corruption and abuse.

Not the least characteristick of the passengers tvere two elderly women, who came together. They each carried a lap-dog, a well stocked and well arranged basket, and a stone bottle, the contents of which it would be impertinent to examine. The magnificent superfluity of their preparation, the skill and care of its adjustment, betokening luxurious tastes, — and the pampered appearance of their fourfooted friends, contrasted oddly with their obstinate rejection of the proffered assistance of the porters to carry on boai'd their weighty delicacies. Rather than pay three-pence to one of the men on the quays, they stumbled, and panted, and pushed, under a load which was heavier than it need to have been by at least five shillings, laid out in ham and mutton pies, more than the voyage required. A genteel lady and her husband, w ho took a cold fowl from the footman attending them, were rescued from the dilemma into which their culpable heedlessness as to such essential matters had involved them, by the loan ^f a little salt, very promptly extended from these more thoughtful caterers. It was delightful to observe the hasty carriage of good-will, mingled with some natural pride, and not a little self-approbation, with which these benevolent persons went at once to the precise corner where lurked the identical paper parcel : having found it, they held forth its treasure w^ith an air and mien full of the dignity that attends alleviating the effects of the improvidence of ourfellowereatures. This dignity is chiefly felt, when the objects of our bounty (as in the present case)— liave pretensions in some respects higher tlian oim own.

CHAPTER IL

Ramsgate is understood to be the most eligible point of departure for Ostend. The trip to Brussels, going by one of the Hoys from London to the former place, or to Margate, and taking advantage of the beautiful canal navigation from Ostend to Ghent, is highly pleasant, and very easy, and is not necessarily attended with much expense. But those who go this way to Paris, find the journey from Brussels both long and expensive.

The view of Ramsgate, as the packet left its noble harbour, and stretched out across the spacious blue sea, under the weight of a sumraei" breeze, was very beautiful. The handsome houses scattered over the cliffs, the walking and riding parties on the sands, the rows of white bathing machines, formed an interesting and pleasing picture. The vessel rippled the transparent water as she inclined easily on her way. By degrees the smaller features of England became less distinct, and, as they gradually faded, afforded the means of calculating the progress we were making. As we advanced further from the land, more of it opened on our sight : the Downs presented a rich and animating throng of masts ; the bold headlands threw themselves against the waves to the north and to the south of us ; — our country appeared " stoutly ramparted with rocks," and the light shadowy sails, that gleamed and shifted around this sublime barrier, might, with but little help from a poetick imagination, be deemed the " Guardian spirits of the isle,"

The first shade of the evening rendered it doubtful whether it was the gloom or the distance, that melted down the outlines of the earth iato the slight and shifting tracery of the air and the ocean. By an instinctive impulse, our eyes which had hitherto been directed behind the vessel, were now fixed in the direction she ^as proceeding, — in haste to discover, since the curtain had dropped on England, vfhat new cceoe was about to be disclosed. The night, bov/ever, fell thickly on our view,' — and it was in the hazy, cold light of a very early hour of the fi)llowing morning, that I perceived the round, sulky looking bent hillocks, whose dwartish elevation told us we were approaching the port of Ostend. Its light-house was just distinguishable, rising from the blank flatness of the apparently interminable coast. As the day advanced, the houses of the town shewed themselves; but they seemed to look forth scantily and with jealousy, from within the bulky projections of grass and stone that denoted its fortitications. We waited impatiently for the hoisting of the flag at the encl of the wooden pier, which is the signal that the tide serves for entering a most incon" venient and dangerous harbour.

The passengers in the packet were chiefly persons connected with the British army, called over in consequence of the arrangements necessary after the great battles. Before the morning had assumed its fresh cheerful aspect, and while the heaviness and damps of night 3'^^ei; lowered on its brow and chilled its iofloeace, my attention was attracted to two women, the wives of soldiers who had been ■wounded, and who v/ere going to Brussels to see their husbands. They had apparently squatted out, in the same attitude, and with the same unmoved looks, the whole of the hours that I had passed below. As I left them, so 1 found them. Their natures had become, under the constant actioa of coarse circumstances, callous, cold, and stiSr,-~"what (lie body becomes wlien it is weatherbeaten. I asked them if tliey had spent the night

on deck ? Tiiey .said ihey had ; — they believed there vv'as uot rooni below. I inquired if they had not felt it co':;:! ? ■' No Sir/'— one of them replied in a sllglit taiie,— and the other, moving her slioolders, and making a sleepy sound with her ■breath, drew her cloak mors c'osely around her. There was somsthijig more tooching in this iosensibiii ty to hardships, thasi ia any common susceptibility to them. It seemed more melancholy that we should lose the faculty of feeling evil when it pressed upon us, than that we should groan under its ■weight. The ioeqiiallty of human condition -was more affectingly exempiified in the torpor of these poor Avomen, contrasted with the artificial seasibi» iities and idle affectations of so many of theii' fellowcreatures, than it could .be by any lively complaint of wretchedness.

The signal was given, and we rapidly approached Ostend. Its houseSj roofed with tiles, give it an English character, %o that the strong impression made by the foreign aspect of Dieppe, which I have described in another work, was not now- eX" perienced. The boatmen who joined the^ crew had nothing about Iheni of the grotesque look of the French pilots; they were open faced, well dressed, and well made fellows. The women on the pier seemed simpler in their general air than those which last year constituted my first specimen of French females in their own country. These early inttications of a prepossessing nature were pleasingly corroborated when I saw more of the Netherlands.

The harbour was full of English transports : soldiers of the same nation were dislinguishable by their red coats, v/alkiiig on the ramparts, and standing as loiterers on the beach. On the quays, Ent glish cannon-balls were piled in large pyramidical

knasses. " I am a British officer," said one of our party as we came up to the custom-house ; — the people there immediately touched their hats, and we passed on with our trunks unopened and unstopped. These talismanick words operated with the same efficacy through the whole of the Netherlands. When the baggage of a crowd of passengers arrived at the first frowning barrier of each of the several fortified towns on the road to Brussels, the individuals, appointed to perform this duty, began a busy inspection of boxes, bundles, and frequently of persons : — this operation, accustomed as we are to a process of a similar nature at some of our towns on the coast, has always an unpleasant look with It to an English eye, and more particularly so when it occurs at inland places, and is exercised on the few small articles carried by the country-people in their short journies. In behalf of the general restraints and strong inflictions of the arm of the law, the well being of society conciliates every reasonable mind ; but extreme disgust and sharp animosity^ exist amongst the pubiick of England against the petty meddling of its fingers^ — and this disposition is by no means to be deplored, in the course, however, of these irksome examinations, the authority and suspicion of the inspectors were instantaneously transformed into the signs of implicit confidence and profound respect, at the intimation that they were laying hands on the trunk or portmanteau of an English officer. It was immediately released from the forms to which the others were compelled to submit, and this privilege was extended to ail that claimed to be joined in its company. The inhabitants, delayed and obstructed, saw their visitors pass on before them as if superiour to all regulations. It was sufficiently plain that t^ie habitual observation of this courtesy and deference, paid to our countrymen, had excited and diffused the most lofty notions of our country. The oflBcers of other nations, in alliance with the king of the Netherlands, had not any thing like the same degree of favour shewn to them : — but the word English was every where a passport and a protection : it was an admission to what was generally concealed, a title to what was generally denied, an excuse for what might be irregular, an introduction to every one's intimacy, and a certain appeal to every one for assistance and kindness.