I embarked the following morning at 12 o'clock in the _coche d'eau_ for Lyons. There was a very numerous and motley company on board: there were three bourgeois belonging to Lyons returning thither from Paris; a quiet good-humoured sort of woman not remarkable either for her beauty nor vivacity; a young Spaniard, an adherent of King Joseph Napoleon, very taciturn and wrapped up in his cloak tho' the weather was exceeding hot; he seemed to do nothing else but smoke _cigarros_ and drink wine, of which he emptied three or four bottles in a very short time--a young Piedmontese officer, disbanded from the army of the Loire, who no sooner sat down on deck than he began to chaunt Filicaja's beautiful sonnet, "_Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte_," etc.--a merchant of Lyons who had been some time in England, and spoke English well--a Lyonnese Major of Infantry, also of the army of the Loire, who had served in Egypt in the 32nd Demi-brigade; three Austrian officers of Artillery with their servants. A large barge which followed and was towed by the _coche d'eau_ was filled with Austrian soldiers, and on the banks of the river were a number of soldiers of the Army of the Loire returning to their families and homes. The peaceable demeanour and honourable conduct of this army is worthy of admiration, and can never be sufficiently praised: not a single act of brigandage has taken place. The Austrian officers expressed to me their astonishment at this, and said they doubted whether any other army in Europe, disbanded and under the same circumstances, would behave so well. I told them the French soldier was a free-man and a citizen and drawn from a respectable class of people, which was not the case in most other countries. Yes, these gallant fellows who had been calumniated by furious Ultras, by the base ministerial prints of England, and the venal satellites of Toryism, who had been represented as brigands or as infuriated Jacobins with red caps and poignards, these men, in spite, of the contumely and insult they met with from servile prefects, and from those who never dared to face them in the field, are a model of good conduct and they preserve the utmost subordination, tho' disbanded: they respect scrupulously the property of the inhabitants and pay for everything. Mr. L., the young Irish barrister, told me at Dijon that he left his purse by mistake in a shop there in which were 20 napoleons in gold, when a soldier of the army of the Loire, who happened to be in the shop, perceived it and came running after him with it, but refused to accept of anything, tho' much pressed by Mr. L., who wished to reward him handsomely for his disinterested conduct. Yes, the French soldier is a fine fellow. I have served against them in Holland and in Egypt and I will never flinch from rendering justice to their exemplary conduct and lofty valour. No! it is not the French soldiery who can be accused of plundering and exaction, but what brought the French name