The Allies have parades and reviews two or three times a week and the Sovereigns of Russia, Austria and Prussia constantly attend; Wellington is their showman. These crowned Heads like mightily playing at soldiers; I should think His Grace must be heartily tired of them. Massacres and persecutions of the Protestants have begun to take place in the South of France, and the priests are at work again threatening with excommunication and hell the purchasers and inheritors of emigrant estates and church lands. These priests and emigrants are incorrigible. Frequent quarrels take place almost every evening in the Palais Royal between the Prussian officers and the French, particularly some of the officers from the army of the Loire. I rather suspect these latter are the aggressors. The Prussians being gorged with plunder come there to eat, drink and amuse themselves and have as little stomach for fighting as the soldier of Lucullus had after having enriched himself; but the officers of the army of the Loire are, poor fellows, in a very different predicament; they have not even been paid what is due to them, and they, having none of those nice felicities (to use an expression of Charlotte Smith's)[41] which make life agreeable, are ready for any combat, to set their life on any cast, "to mend it, or to be rid of 't." The Prussians indulge in every sort of dissipation, which they are enabled to do by the plunder which they have accumulated, and of which they have formed, I understand, a _dépôt_ at St Germain. They send these articles of plunder to town every day to be sold, and then divide the profits, which are sure to be spent in the Palais Royal, and other places of revel and debauchery. They sometimes affect a fastidiousness of stomach which is quite laughable, and not at all peculiar to the Germans, who are in general blessed by nature with especial good appetites; and they spend so much money that the English officers who have not had the advantages of plunder that these Prussians have had must appear by the side of them stingy and niggardly. I was witness one day to a whimsical scene, which will serve to give you an idea of the airs of importance these gentlemen give themselves. I was one day at Versailles and after having visited the palace and gardens I entered the Salon of a restaurateur and called for a veal cutlet and _vin ordinaire_. There was a fat Prussian Major with two or three of his companions at one of the tables, who had been making copious libations to Bacchus in Burgundy and Champaign. He heard me call for _vin ordinaire_, and whether it was to show his own magnificence I know not, but he called out to the _cafetière_: "Madame, votre vin ordinaire est il buvable? car j'en veux donner a mon trompette, et s'il n'est pas bon, il n'en boira pas. Faites venir mon trompette." Now I dare say in his own country this Major would not have disdained even the "schwarze Bier" of Brandenburgh.