CHAPTER XXIII. PARIS IN 1814 (continued). Star of the brave! thy ray is pale, The Star of the Legion of Honour. WHEN I entered Paris, I found no civilian before me but Dr. Wollaston, who had been admitted by the special permission of the French Government before its overthrow; and it would take a volume, even briefly, to describe the unparalleled condition of the place, and the multitude who thronged it in every part. But in a work like this I must, as it were, gallop over the interesting ground with a few miscellaneous reminiscences. Nor will the galloping be confined to me, for there was little else than galloping all over Paris. With imposition on every hand, and in every charge, things would not have been so dear but for the cruel exchange of nearly thirty per cent. against the English stranger; and yet, with so much to see and enjoy, there was no time for complaint. From my tolerably snug domicile (after a few absolutely necessary reforms had been effected), the Hôtel de Rome, near our ambassador's and his Russian sentinels, a stroll to Tortoni's to breakfast, was an easy and pleasant transition. Cotelettes or fricandeaus and wine were an agreeable change for everlasting tea and toast; but if not, they must be endured, for the continental system had blocked colonial produce out of the country. There was coffee, and occasionally a suspicion of tea, made of the dried leaves of birch-brooms (intelligent middle-class females in the provinces did not know what tea was), and sugar, in small portions, probably from beet-root, so prized that never a lump was left in the glass or basin, after the eau sucrée was drunk, but wrapped in a bit of paper, and carefully conveyed to the pocket of the customer, who felt that he had paid for it, and had a right to do what he liked with his own. Then, if Tortoni's was good, Beauvillier's, in the Rue de Richelieu, for dinner, was still better. You cannot match it in Paris now. The cuisine was perfect, the cellar superb : from five to seven hundred people dined there every day, and there never was cause to find fault. The finest wines of France, with one exception (Clos Vougeot, of 1788,) ranged under the price of eight francs a bottle to two or three, and when admirable red and white hermitage, sillery first quality, the best Laffitte, &c., are placed at the top of the list, and excellent champagne, burgundy, and claret, &c., in the descending scale, it may well be asked in 1852, why the British consumer pays so much higher a sum for very inferior vintages with very high-sounding names. But it was not the viands at this celebrated restaurant which daily attracted me to my dinner there. The company were of a description to surpass the utmost curiosity of an English tourist, and especially of one who, for many months, had been anxiously following events, and publishing, to the best of his knowledge and belief, for the information of his country, the most authentic accounts of the feats of the leading allied commanders. Conceive, then, my astonishment and delight at finding myself in the midst of them, gazing at the illustrious men in the next boxes to me, whose heroic exploits I had' so long been celebrating with my utmost powers-and you may imagine that it needed no Romanée nor Chambertin (nor porter Anglais at two francs a bottle!) to make me almost drunk and delirious with excitement. But I had better illustrate this matter by a general description than by sequent details. It was on the first or the second day I dined at Beauvillier's that a fair, Saxon-looking gentleman came and seated himself at my table. I think he chose the seat advertently, from having observed, or gathered, that I was fresh from London. We speedily entered into conversation, and he pointed out to me some of the famous individuals who were doing justice to the Parisian cookery at the various tables around-probably about twenty in all. As he mentioned their names I could not repress my enthusiasm-a spirit burning over England when I left it only a few days before-and my new acquaintance seemed to be much gratified by my ebullitions. "Well," said he, to a question from me, "that is Davidoff, the colonel of the Black Cossacks." I shall not repeat my exclamations of surprise and pleasure at the sight of this terrific leader, who had hovered over the enemy everywhere, cut off so many resources, and performed such incredible marches and actions as to render him and his Cossacks the dread of their foes. "Is this," inquired my companion, "the opinion of England?" I assured him it was, and let out the secret of my editorial consequence, in proof that I was a competent witness. On this a change of scene ensued. My incognito walked across to Davidoff, who forthwith filled and sent me a glass of his wine (the glass he was using), and drank my health. I followed the example, and sent mine in return, and the compliment was completed. But it did not stop with this single instance. My new fair-complexioned friend went to another table, and spoke with a bronzed and hardy-looking warrior, from whom, he came with another similar bumper to me, and the request that I would drink wine with General Czernicheff. I was again in flames; but it is unnecessary to repeat the manner in which I, on that, to me, memorable day, took wine with half-a-dozen of the most distinguished generals in the allied service. Whilst this toasting-bout was going on, a seedy-looking old gentleman came in, and I noticed that some younger officers rose and offered him a place, which he rejected, till a vacancy occurred, and then he quietly sat down, swallowed his two dozen of green oysters as a whet, and proceeded to dine with an appetite. By this time my vis-à-vis had resumed his seat, and, after what had passed, I felt myself at liberty to ask him the favour of informing me who he himself was ! I was soon answered. He was a Mr. Parris, of Hamburgh, whose prodigious commissariat engagements with the grand army had been fulfilled in a manner to prosper the war; and I was now at no loss to account for his intimacy with its heroes. It so happened that I knew, and was on friendly terms with some of his near relations; and so the two hours I have described took the value of two years. But the climax had to come. Who was the rather seedy-looking personage whom the aides-de-camp appeared so ready to accommodate? Oh that was Blucher! If I was outrageous before, I was mad now. I explained to Mr. Parris the feeling of England with regard to this hero; and that amid the whole host of great and illustrious names, his had become the most glorious of all, and was really the one which filled most unanimously and loudly the trump of fame. He told me that an assurance of this would be most gratifying to the marshal, who thought much of the approbation of England, and asked my leave to communicate to him what I had said. I could have no objection; but after a short colloquy, Blucher did not send his glass to me he came himself; and I hob-nobbed with the immortal soldier. I addressed him in French, to which he would not listen; and I then told him in English of the glorious estimation in which he was held in my country, which Mr. Parris translated into German; and if ever high gratification was evinced by man, it was by Blucher on this occasion. I had the honour of breakfasting with him at his hotel next morning, when the welcome matter was discussed more circumstantially, and he evinced the greatest delight. When he was in London, I, among the crowds that wearied his levees, endeavoured to remind him of our Paris meetings, but he had forgotten them; the seven years of plenty had obliterated the recollection of their advent. This was an interregnum time. Napoleon had been sent off on the 21st of April, and was getting away from the south of France when Louis le Désiré was about getting into it on the north. A strange disorderly order pervaded France, and especially Paris. Everybody seemed to do what they liked, and though there was a certain "Occupation" restraint, liberty and license were carried to as enormous an extent as vice ever triumphed in or virtue mourned. It was impossible to distinguish the true from the false the world appeared to be made of expedients, and if they were not exceedingly criminal, there was no harm done, nor censure incurred. The entry of Louis XVIII. into Paris, on the 4th of May, was a splendid spectacle, and the parade on the banks of the Seine of the élite of the Allied Forces, the |