I have only been twice to the theatre since I have been here.  The Salle de Spectacle is indifferent, but they have an excellent company of comedians.  The representations are in French.  I saw the Festin de Pierre of Corneille exceedingly well performed.  The actors who did the parts of Don Juan and Sganarelle were excellent, and the scene with M. Dimanche, wherein he demands payment of his bill, was admirably given.  I have also seen the Plaideurs of Racine, a very favourite piece of mine; every actor played his part most correctly, and the scene between the Comtesse de Pimbeche and Chicaneau and L’Intime wherein the latter, disguised as a Bailli, offers himself to be kicked by the former, was given in very superior style.  The scene of the trial of the dog, with the orations of Petit Jean as demandeur and L’Intime as defenseur, were played with good effect.  I never recollect having witnessed a theatrical piece which afforded me greater amusement.

NAMUR, May 12.

We left Brussels yesterday afternoon, and having obtained passports to visit the military posts we went to Genappe, a small village half-way between Bruxelles and Namur, where we brought to for the night at a small but comfortable inn called Le Roi d’Espagne.  Two battalions of the regiment Nassau-Usingen are quartered in Genappe.  We arrived at Namur this morning at nine o’clock and put up at the Hotel d’Arenberg.  On the road we stopped at a peasant’s house to drink coffee; and we were entertained by our hostess with complaints against the Prussians, who commit, as she said, all sorts of exactions on the peasantry on whom they are quartered.  Not content with exacting three meals a day, when they were only entitled to two, and for which they are bound to give their rations, they sell these, and appropriate the money to their own use; then the demand for brandy and schnapps is increasing.  But what can be expected from an army whose leader encourages them in all their excesses?  Blucher by all accounts is a vandal and is actuated by a most vindictive spirit.  The Prussians reproach the Belgians with being in the French interest; how can they expect it to be otherwise?  They have prospered under French domination, and certainly the conduct of the Prussians is not calculated to inspire them with any love towards themselves nor veneration for the Sovereign who has such all-devouring allies.  I asked this woman why she did not complain to the officers.  She answered!  “Helas, Monsieur, c’est inutile; on donne toujours la meme reponse:  ‘Nichts verstehn,’” for it appears when these complaints are made the Prussian officers pretend not to understand French.

Namur is now the head-quarters of Marshal Blucher, who is in the enjoyment of divers noms de guerre, such as “Marshall Vorwaerts,” “Der alte Teufel.”  On the high road, about two miles and a half before we reached Namur, we met with a party of Prussian lancers, who were returning from a foraging excursion.  They were singing some warlike song or hymn, which was singularly impressive.  It brought to my recollection the description of the Rhenish bands in the Lay of the Last Minstrel: