_Sunday, July 22d._--This is the first time I have been sufficiently settled and quiet to sit down to write since the evening of the 17th, my last at Colombes--dear Colombes! The intervening space has not been passed in idleness. On the morning of the 18th I was fully occupied in giving over my troop and stores to Major Wilmot, who takes possession also of my charming apartment, and Mademoiselle Ernestine gets a new neighbour. After an earlier dinner than usual, Hitchins accompanied me to St Denis; my servants and horses started in the morning. At St Denis I could gain no immediate and distinct information. Some of Ross’s non-commissioned officers whom I met with said they thought the troop must have halted in Stain. I shuddered at the very name of the place; it was the worst I had anticipated. As Hitchins knew the desolation of Stain, and the utter impossibility of my giving him a bed, even if I could get one myself, he took his leave, and I proceeded thitherward alone. It was with a heavy heart that I traversed the once rich crops of grain, now trodden into mud by having been the bivouac of our troops, and still heavier that I rode through the dismal street of the ruined village. I soon met some of the gunners, who confirmed my worst fears--viz., that the troop actually was stationed here. The officers were living and messing in a house close to the church, and opposite the _grille_ of the great chateau; and thither I repaired, and found them accordingly sitting at their wine. My servants had been here some time, and had taken possession of the Petit chateau, already mentioned. The house I found my officers in belongs to the Sœurs de la Charité. I was sensibly struck on entering it at the contrast with my villa at Colombes; mean, gloomy, dirty, and scarce an article of furniture in it, and what there was, of the poorest description. To counterbalance all this, it is the only house in the place (at least so they thought then) that has any glass in the windows, and how it escaped is extraordinary. They were seated in a dismal room, very low, and having a very disagreeable odour, overpowering even that of the dinner, in which the flavour of onions predominated. After introducing myself, and drinking a glass or two of wine, as the daylight began to fail I set off to inspect my new quarters. The appearance of this in its best days would not have been pleasing after Colombes; but now, forlorn, deserted, plundered! The handsome furniture which had once adorned it, mutilated and torn to pieces, was yet fresh when last I saw it; the fragments retained their paint or gilding, the mahogany its varnish; the tatters of silk fringe and curtains, scattered over the lawns and walks, or hanging from the branches in the shrubberies, yet retained their colour in all its freshness: now, after having been drenched by rain, and bleached in the sun and wind, all remains of former beauty were gone--all