Every thinking Englishman must feel the dissolution of this middling order of men would transform the State into an absolute military power, or, what is worse, a tyrannical and licentious democracy. This argument finds an apt illustration in a great commercial city which is under aristocratic government. Hamburg, by the encouragement afforded to that body, is one of the best regulated cities of Europe. Multitudes of country seats belonging to traders are scattered plentifully on the banks of the Elbe; and even Denmark, although a purely absolute monarchy, owes much of its happiness and strength to the importance attached to this order of men--an order which in France has never so far existed. Hence during the old monarchy despotism wantoned in power, or was mildly exercised according to the views and inclinations of the rulers, while during every stage of the Republic the leaders of the people, drunk with authority, wallowed in the blood of their fellow citizens. At this very moment an absolute military despot is governing the country, and the people are, as before, mere slaves, insecure of property or personal security. The entrance to Paris from S. Denys is not calculated to give a foreigner a favourable idea of the capital. The city has every appearance of filth and poverty, and the Triumphal Arch or Porte S. Denys, under which we passed, has such a sombre cast as to give the traveller the impression that he is going into the courtyard of a prison. I ordered the postillion to drive to the hotel in the Rue Coquenon, where I resided in 1792 and 1793, and where I had left all my books. When we arrived there I saw written in large letters over the _porte-cochère_ “_Maison de Commission_.” I alighted and inquired what had become of the former proprietor. I was told that he had been guillotined. We then drove to the Hôtel Morigny, where I afterwards learnt a celebrated Corsican, when times went hard with him, lodged in a small apartment at seven shillings per week. There were, however, no rooms vacant, we therefore took up our lodgings at the Coq Heron--an hotel lately established and kept by an Englishman named Guillandeau, the greatest blackguard in Christendom. We afterwards removed to private apartments in the Rue Mirabeau, _ci-devant_ Chaussée d’Antin. VIII A DESCRIPTION OF THE _MODE_