Evening was drawing on, and I ran hastily through the two floors of the Cabinet of Natural History, that I might get home before dark. The entrance to the Jardin des Plantes, by a handsome _grille_ from the quay opposite the Pont d’Austerlitz, is very good, but I could not stop to admire it; and hurrying along the _quais_, instead of blundering amongst the streets, succeeded again in just getting home in time. _August 8th._--It seems as if I were destined always to fall under the Duke’s displeasure, and to be the victim of his injustice. When I called on Sir Augustus Frazer this morning at the Hotel du Nord, the first greeting I got on entering the room was, “_Mercer, you are released from arrest!_” At first I thought this a joke, but Sir Augustus assured me seriously that I had not only been in arrest, but _that_, too, ever since our review on the 24th ultimo. He then told me that I had not been the only unfortunate. Himself and Major M’Donald had been supposed under arrest at the same time and for the same _crime_; and what was this?--this very grave crime for which two field officers and a captain had actually been under ignominious punishment for a whole fortnight? In the column of review on the 24th ultimo, my troop was on the extreme left (or rear), except the two brigades of 18-pounders. Our order of marching past was in column of divisions (we have three divisions), and my post for saluting was considerably in front of the leading one, to leave room for the division officers at open order, consequently I was fully a hundred yards distant from my rear-division when passing the Duke. Now it so fell out that, at that very moment, a horse of one of the rear-division carriages got his leg over a trace. The limber gunners, with their wonted activity, were off, cleared the leg, remounted, all in sufficient time for the division to pass his Grace steadily and in good order. But this little halt, momentary as it was, checked the 18-pounders; and Ilbert, or whoever commanded them, ignorant of the saluting-point, trotted up to regain his distance, until suddenly, seeing the sovereigns and their suite, he resumed his walk too late, and passed them in confusion. The Duke fell into one of his furious passions, asked how this happened, and (what he did with the foot-artillery I know not) immediately despatched the Adjutant-General to put Sir Augustus Frazer, Major M’Donald, and myself under arrest. The two former, however, had departed; and whilst the Adjutant-General was struggling through the crowd after me, I had cleared the Rue Royale, and setting off at a trot down the Boulevard, had turned down the Rue de Clichy, consequently was out of sight ere he reached the Boulevard, where he gave up the pursuit and said no more about it. Whether the Duke forgot us, or whether he purposely kept us in arrest, we are left to conjecture--certain it is, that we three actually appear by name in the General’s orders of yesterday as released from our arrest.