A bas, a bas Napoleon! 
  Vivent, vivent les Bourbons!

A number of beautiful women elegantly attired paraded up and down the public promenades, which are exceedingly well and tastefully laid out.  This city is built with great regularity, and the streets are broad, neat, and clean.  It is by far the handsomest city I have ever seen either in France or Belgium.  The Hotel de Ville and the theatre both are on the Grande Place and are well worth seeing.  Lille is renowned for its fortifications; I much wished to visit the citadel but I was not permitted.  At dinner at the table d’hote at the Hotel du Commerce, I remarked a French officer declaiming violently against Napoleon; but I heard afterwards that he was the son of an Emigrant; the rest of the company did not seem to approve his discourse and shewed visible impatience at it.

Lille may be easily recognised at its approach from the immense quantity of wind-mills that are in the vicinity of this city, some of which are used for grinding of wheat and others for the expression of oil.  A great deal of flax from whence the oil is made, grows in the country.

I left Lille on the morning of the 24th inst., with the courier for Amiens.  From Amiens I took the diligence to Beauvais and on arrival there I put up under the hospitable roof of my friend Major G., of the 18th Light Dragoons, lately made Lt.-Colonel for his gallantry at Waterloo.[42] I did not want for amusement here, for the next day a fete champetre was given just outside the walls of the town, and I admired the grace and tournure of the female peasantry and their good dancing.  How much more creditable are these innocent and agreeable fetes to the fairs and meetings in England, which are generally signalized in drunkenness!  The next afternoon presented a novel sight to the inhabitants of Beauvais, it being a grand cricket match played between the officers of the 10th and 18th Dragoons.  It was won by the latter, mainly owing to the superior play of Colonel G. of the 18th, who never touched a bat since he was at Burney’s school.  The Officers afterwards dined al fresco and many toasts accompanied by the huzzas were given, to the astonishment of the bystanders, who seemed to consider us as little better than barbarians.  One of the officers wishing to pay a compliment to the inhabitants of Beauvais proposed the health of Louis XVIII, but they seemed to take it coldly and not at all to be flattered by the compliment.

After five days very agreeable residence at Beauvais, I put myself in the diligence to return to Paris.  During the journey an ardent political altercation arose between a young lady, who appeared to be a warm partisan of Napoleon, on the one side, and a Garde du Corps on the other.  The lady was seconded by a young gentleman, of whom it was difficult to say, whether he sustained her argument from a dislike to the present order of things, or from a wish to ingratiate