The time for changing horses by my watch was not more than one minute--before you knew one stage was passed another was commenced; they gave us 5 minutes to eat our breakfast--an operation something like that of ducks in a platter, the dish consisting of coffee and milk with rolls sopped in it. The roads are incomparable--better than ours and nearly if not quite as good as the Irish. The country from Havre to Rouen is rich in corn of every description--there is nothing particular in the face of it, and yet you would, if awakened from a dream, at once declare you were not in England; in the first place there are no hedges--the road was almost one continuous avenue of apple-trees; the timber trees are not planted in hedgerows but in little clumps or groves, sometimes but generally rather removed from the road, and it is amongst these that the villages and cottages are concealed, for it is surprising how few in comparison with England are seen. The trees are of two descriptions--either trimmed up to the very top or cut off so as to form underwood. I did not observe one that could be called a branching tree; the finest beech we saw looked like a pole with a tuft upon it. The cottages are mostly of clay, generally speaking very clean, and coming nearer to what I should define a cottage to be than ours in England. You see no cows in the fields, they are all tethered by the road-side or other places, by which a considerable quantity of grass must be saved, and each is attended by an old woman or child. We passed through 2 or 3 small towns and entered Rouen 8 hours after quitting Havre, 57 miles. Rouen, beautiful Rouen, we entered through such an avenue of noble trees, its spires, hills and woods peeping forth, and the Seine winding up the country, wide as the Thames at Chelsea. Such a gateway! I have made a sketch, but were I to work it up for a month it would still fall far short and be an insult to the subject it attempts to represent. If Havre can strike the eye of a stranger, what must not Rouen do? Every step teems with novelty and richness, Gothic gateways, halls, and houses. What are our churches and cathedrals in England compared to the noble specimens of Gothic architecture which here present themselves?... Rouen has scarcely yet recovered from the dread they were in of the Cossacks, who were fully expected, and all valuables secreted--not that they were absolutely without news from the capital: the diligence had been stopped only once during the three days after the Allies entered Paris. Till then they had proceeded _comme à l'ordinaire_, and the diligence in which we are to proceed to-night left it when Shots were actually passing over the road during the battle of Montmartre--how they could find passengers to quit it at such an interesting moment I cannot conceive; had I been sure of being eaten up by a Horde of Cossacks, I could not have left the spot.