the drum was responded to by an opening of doors and the sallying out of old ladies, each bearing under her arm one of those enormous loaves already mentioned. What can all this mean, thought I? Is it possible that in this most military of all nations even women are subject to regulations, and obliged to conduct the _ménage_ by tap of drum or sound of bugle? One old lady, with a huge annular loaf, whom I questioned, soon solved the query. The commissary had ordered the inhabitants to feed the troops, and this drumming hero was the crier, who gave notice to that effect, and was likewise collecting all the ready-baked bread at the church for distribution. The thing seemed perfectly well understood, each roll of the drum producing precisely the same effect as the crier moved along the great rambling street. The old women, as they trotted towards the church, made a clatter with their _sabots_ like so many horses. Many of the people I found had, on our first arrival, concealed everything; but the dread of being plundered was soon removed, and all is now confidence. As far as I can judge, these people seem to live well enough in their own way; and in every house one is sure to find good beds, very high, being raised upon an enormous palliasse. There is no want of silver spoons, and even forks, in many of them; and their stock of household linen (good) is really astonishing, many small _cultivateurs_ possessing as much as would set up two or three of our middling farmers. I use the term “_cultivateur_” to designate a class quite common in France, but scarcely known in England. They are proprietors of small estates (perhaps only a few acres), fractions of large ones sold in lots during the Revolution. These, of course, they cultivate themselves, with the assistance of their families, and are thence styled “_cultivateurs_” by the Government, and are obliged to put this, coupled with their number (they are all numbered), upon their carts, &c.--for example, “Joachim Laroque, cultivateur, No. 3755;” or “Jean Baptiste Amand,” &c. &c. &c. We find them a simple, obliging, but very ignorant race; and their _patois_ is to me almost unintelligible. Some with whom I conversed this evening either were, or pretended to be, quite ignorant of what has been taking place in the great world. They had heard that France was at war with England, Russia, and Prussia, but that was all. They had never heard of Wellington, nor of Nelson, nor even Louis XVIII. They had, however, heard enough to inspire them with some dread of the Cossacks and Prussians. I asked them if they knew Buonaparte? “Non, monsieur--non y pas!” “Napoleon?--aw mais oui, monsieur, c’est l’Empereur que ça--n’est ce paw vrai, monsieur?” They had heard of him because he made them pay taxes; but of his wars they were as ignorant as all the rest, and did not speculate the least in the world as to how and why we are here.