Their coffee-houses are some of them quite extraordinary; most of them are ornamented with Mirrors in abundance, but some shine with more splendour. In the Palais Royal there is one called "Le Café de mille Colonnes," which merits some description. It consists of three or four rooms--the largest is almost one mass of plate-glass Mirrors, beautiful clocks at each end, and magnificent chandeliers; behind a raised Table of most superb structure, composed of slabs of marble and plate-glass, sat a lady dressed in the richest manner, Diamonds on head and hand, Lace, Muslin, &c. This is the Landlady; by her a little boy, about 4 years old, stood in charge of a drawer from whence the small change was issued; this, if it happened to be copper, was delicately touched by the fair hand, which was immediately washed in a glass of water as if contaminated by the vulgar metal. She never spoke to the waiters, but rung a golden bell; her inkstands, flower jars--in short, every article on the table was of the same metal or of silver gilt. The tables for the company were fine marble slabs; the room was from the reflection of all the mirrors, as you may suppose, a perfect blaze of light, and yet altogether the place looked dirty, from the undress and shabby coats of the company. The French never dress for the evening unless going out to parties, and they always look dirty and unlike gentlemen; the former is not the case, in fact for they are constantly washing and bathing. An hour or two before I was in this extraordinary coffee-house I had traversed a spot as opposite to it as could well be--the Catacombs!--a range of vaults nearly half a mile long, about 80 feet under ground, in which are deposited all the bones from all the cemeteries in Paris. I suppose we were in company with some millions of skeletons, whose skulls are so arranged as to form regular patterns, and here and there was an altar made of bones fancifully piled up, on the sides an inscription in Latin, French, &c. Behind one wall the bodies of all who perished in the massacres in Paris were immured. They were brought in carts at night and thrown in, and there they rest, festering not in their shrouds but in clothes. Such a mass of corrupt flesh would soon have infested all the vaults, so they were bricked up. [Illustration: Catacombs Paris, July 8, 1814] I wish to recommend our hotel to any people you may hear of coming to Paris--Hôtel des Estrangers, Rue du Hazard, kept by Mr. Meriel. Its situation is both quiet and convenient; it is really not five minutes' walk from the leading objects of Paris, and the people have been civil to us beyond measure. CHAPTER IV ON THE TRACK OF NAPOLEON'S ARMY