However severe his Grace may be in this respect, he is easy and indulgent in another which materially concerns our comfort--I mean dress. Every one pleases his fancy in the selection of his costume--some wear plain clothes; others, though in uniform (I speak of visiting and walking about Paris), choose to be unencumbered with sword or sash. Many cavalry men, &c., like, in this hot weather, to go with jackets open, with white or fancy waistcoats, &c. Some wear mustaches, others beards; others, again, both beard and mustaches. A neglect of military uniformity so striking, and so much in contrast with the precision and strictness of costume observed by all the other armies, could not but be noticed. Accordingly, it is said, one of the monarchs (Emperor Alexander, I have heard) made an observation on the subject to the Duke, who, feeling himself called on to do something, gave out a general order on the subject, in which he directed that all officers of the British army appearing in the streets of Paris should be dressed either wholly in plain clothes or in the strict uniform of their corps. No doubt which was chosen. There is another general order of the Duke’s quoted, and the cause of it--for which, however, I do not vouch, having never seen it. The story is this: An English officer, walking on the Boulevard, was rudely pushed off the path by a French gentleman, whom the Englishman immediately knocked down. The person so treated happened to be a marshal; and he, without loss of time, complained to the Duke, though unable to identify his man. His Grace in consequence issued a general order commenting on the outrage offered to a person of such high distinction, and winding up with desiring that British officers would in future abstain from beating marshals of France, &c. But I have digressed from the thread of my discourse, to which I must return, and endeavour to render it as connected as my disjointed records, aided by memory, will admit of.