We stay over Monday, for there is a grand Review on the Boulevards. We have seen Cuirassiers and Lancers shining in the sun and fluttering their little banner in the air. The Bourbons, who are determined to root out every vestige of the past, are now stripping the Troops of the Uniform which remind the wearers of battles fought and cities won, and re-clothing them in the white dress of the "ancien Régime," which is wretchedly ugly. They know best what they are about, and they certainly have a people to deal with unlike the rest of the world, but were I a Bourbon, I should be cautious how I proceeded in demolishing everything which reminded the people of their recent glory. Luckily the column on the Place Vendôme has as yet escaped the Goths, and its bronze basso reliefs are still the pride of Paris. _Edward Stanley to Louisa Stanley._ _July 13, 1816._ Days in Paris are like lumps of barley sugar, sweet to the taste and melting rapidly away.... We have now seen theatres, shows, gardens, museums, palaces, and prisons. Aye, Louisa, we have been immured within the walls of La Force, and that from inclination! not necessity. We procured an order to see Bruce,[121] and after some shuttlecock sort of work, sending and being sent from office to office and Préfet to Préfet, at length we received our order of admission. In this order our persons are described; the man put me down "sourcils gris." "Mais, Monsieur," said I, "they will never admit me with that account." He looked at me again, "Ah! vos cheveux sont gris, mais pour les sourcils, non pas, vous avez raison," and altering them to "noirs," he sent me about my business. Bar and bolt were opened, and at length we found ourselves in the presence of these popular prisoners--Popular, at least, amongst the female part of the world. I have reason to believe that a few of the Miss Stanleys had formed a romantic attachment for Michael Bruce, and there are few of our adventures which would, I think, have given you more pleasure than this visit. Your heart would have been torn from its little resting-place and been imprisoned for ever. Michael Bruce! such an eye! such a figure! such a countenance! such a voice! and so much sense and elegance of manner, and then so interesting! There he sat in a small, wretched room, dirty and felonious, with two little windows, one looking into a court where a parcel of ragged prisoners were playing at fives, the other into a sort of garden where others were loitering away their listless vacuity of time. I will not tell you what he said, for it would but inflame a wound which I cannot heal, and because part of his conversation was secret, _i.e._, of a very interesting and curious nature which I cannot write and must not speak of. "Oh! dear Uncle, why won't you tell? a secret from Michael Bruce in the prison of La Force!"