Poverty, the inseparable companion of a manufacturing population, shews itself in the number of beggars that infest this road as well as that from Calais to Paris. They station themselves by the side of every hill, as regularly as the mendicants of Rome were wont to do upon the bridges. Sometimes a small nosegay thrown into your carriage announces the petition in language, which, though mute, is more likely to prove efficacious than the loudest prayer. Most commonly, however, there is no lack of words; and, after a plaintive voice has repeatedly assailed you with "une petite charité, s'il vous plait, Messieurs et Dames," an appeal is generally made to your devotion, by their gabbling over the Lord's Prayer and the Creed with the greatest possible velocity. At the conclusion, I have often been told that they have repeated them once, and will do so a second time if I desire it! Should all this prove ineffectual, you will not fail to hear "allons, Messieurs et Dames, pour l'amour de Dieu, qu'il vous donné un bon voyage," or probably a song or two; the whole interlarded with scraps of prayers, and ave-marias, and promises to secure you "santé et salut." They go through it with an earnestness and pertinacity almost inconceivable, whatever rebuffs they may receive. Their good temper, too, is undisturbed, and their face is generally as piteous as their language and tone; though every now and then a laugh will out, and probably at the very moment when they are telling you they are "pauvres petits misérables," or "petits malheureux, qui n'ont ni père ni mère." With all this they are excellent flatterers. An Englishman is sure to be "milord," and a lady to be "ma belle duchesse," or "ma belle princesse." They will try too to please you by "vivent les Anglais, vive Louis dix-huit." In 1814 and 1815, I remember the cry used commonly to be "vive Napoléon," but they have now learned better; and, in truth, they had no reason to bear attachment to the ex-emperor, an early maxim of whose policy it was to rid the face of the country of this description of persons, for which purpose he established workhouses, or _dépots de mendicité_, in each department, and his gendarmes were directed to proceed in the most summary manner, by conveying every mendicant and vagrant to these receptacles, without listening to any excuse, or granting any delay. He had no clear idea of the necessity of the gentle formalities of a summons, and a pass under his worship's hand and seal. And, without entering into the elaborate researches respecting the original habitat of a _mumper_, which are required by the English law, he thought that pauperism could be sufficiently protected by consigning the specimen to the nearest cabinet. The simple and rigorous plan of Napoléon was conformable to the nature of his government, and it effectually answered the purpose. The day, therefore, of his exile to Elba was a _Beggar's Opera_ throughout France; and they have kept up the jubilee to the