[31] A Casinogesellschaft, still in existence (1908), was founded at
    Frankfort in 1805, with the object of uniting the aristocratic
    elements of the city, admittance being freely allowed to distinguished
    strangers, in particular to the envoys of the Bundestag.  The
    Gesellschaft or club occupied spacious rooms in the house of the
    once famous tapissier and decorator Major Rumpf, grandfather of the
    German sculptor of the same name.  That building, situated at the
    corner of the Rossmarkt, was demolished about 1880.—­ED.

CHAPTER III

From Bruxelles to Paris—­Restoration of Louis XVIII—­The officers of the allied armies—­The Palais Royal—­The Louvre—­Protest of the author against the proposed despoiling of the French Museums—­Unjust strictures against Napoleon’s military policy—­The cant about revolutionary robberies—­The Grand Opera—­Monuments in Paris—­The Champs Elysees—­Saint-Cloud—­The Hotel des Invalides—­The Luxembourg—­General Labedoyere—­Priests and emigrants—­Prussian Plunder—­Handsome behaviour of the English officers—­ Reminiscences of Eton—­Versailles.

PARIS, August 3rd.

Here I am in Paris.  I left Bruxelles the 29th July, stopped one night at Mons and passing thro’ Valenciennes, Peronne and St Quentin arrived here on the third day.  The villages and towns on the road had been pretty well stripped of eatables by the Allied army, as well as by the French, so that we did not meet with the best fare.  In every village the white flag was displayed by way of propitiating the clemency of the Allies and averting plunder.

August 7th.

I have put up at the Hotel de Cahors, Rue de Richelieu, where I pay five francs per diem for a single room; such is the dearness of lodgings at this moment.  It is well furnished, however, with sofas, commodes, mirrors and a handsome clock and is very spacious withal, there being an alcove for the bed.  This situation is extremely convenient, being close to the Palais Royal, Rue St Honore, Theatre Francais, Louvre and the Tuileries on one side, and to the Grand Opera, the Theatre Feydeau, the Italian Opera and the Boulevards on the other.  The National Library is not many yards distant from my hotel, and a few yards from that en face is the Grand Opera house or Academie Royale de Musique.

This city is filled with officers and travellers of all kinds who have followed the army.  The House of Legislature of the Hundred Days,—­as it is the fashion to style Napoleon’s last reign—­dissolved themselves on the demand of a million of francs as a war contribution made by Marshall Blucher.  Louis XVIII has been hustled into Paris, and now occupies the throne of his ancestors under the protection of a million of foreign bayonets, and the banniere des Lis has replaced the tricolor on the castle