was to accompany me to St Cloud.  St Cloud is an exceedingly neat pretty town, well and solidly built, and tolerably large.  There are a great many good restaurants and cafes, as St Cloud with its Palace, promenades and gardens forms one of the most favourite resorts of the Parisians on Sundays and jours de fete.  Diners de societe and noces et festins are often made here; and there is both land and water conveyance during the whole day.  There are two roads by land from Paris:  the one on the Quai the whole way; the other through the Bois de Boulogne and Champs Elysees.  The gardens of St Cloud are laid out something in the style of a jardin anglais, but mixed with the regular old fashioned garden; it abounds in lofty trees, beautiful sites and well arranged vistas commanding extensive views of Paris and the country environing.  St Cloud was the favourite residence of Napoleon; and the furniture in the palace here shows him to be a man of the most refined taste.  All is elegant and classic; there is nothing superfluous; the furniture is modern, but in strict imitation of the furniture of the ancients and chiefly in bronze.  There are superb vases and candelabras in marble, magnificent clocks of various kinds, marble busts, and busts in bronze of great men, and bronze statues large as life holding lamps.  The chairs and sofas too are in a classic taste, as are the beds and baths.  We were informed here that Blucher, who passed one night here, tore with his spur the satin covering of one of the sofas and that he did it wilfully; but I never can believe that the old man would be so silly, and I rather think that this story is an invention of the keeper of the Palace, or that if it was done, it was done by an accident merely.  But the fact is that Blucher has a contempt for and hates the Parisians and likes to mortify them on all occasions; he threatens to do a number of things which he never seriously intends, merely for the sake of teasing them; and it must be owned that they deserve a little contempt from the want of caractere they showed on the entrance of the Allies.  Be it as it may, Blucher is the bete noire of the Parisians and they are as much afraid of him as the children are of Monsieur Croque-mitaine.

We returned from St Cloud by the Quai, crossed the bridge of Jena, galloped along the Champs de Mars, took a hasty glance at the Hotel des Invalides, a magnificent edifice and which may be distinguished from all other buildings by its gilded cupola.  It is a superb establishment in every respect, and is furnished with an excellent library.  A great many old soldiers are to be seen in this library occupied in reading; they are very polite to all visitors, particularly to ladies.  Nothing can better demonstrate the superior character, intelligence and deportment of the French soldiers over those of all other countries than the way in which they employ their time in literary