Be this as it may, the ball was well, or at least fully, attended, by generals, colonels, captains, serjeants, corporals, privates, and drummers, with their wives and children; to whom may be added all the butchers, barbers, bakers, tallow-chandlers, servant-maids, and fishwomen in and about Quimper, “whose dress, manners, and vociferation, joined to the offensive smell which proceeded from their persons, drove me,” said the lady from whom I borrow this account, “out of the room in about half an hour.” The maid of our house (who is not of an ignoble stock, although reduced to service) said, she did not deign to dance, as none but _sans-culotte_ partners offered themselves. Water was the only refreshment which was served up at this civic feast, and all the fiddlers of the town were put in a state of requisition to play at it. My curiosity was strong; but it was impossible for an Englishman to be present on such an occasion. I shall now describe a scene to you, which filled me with very different emotions from this recital.----On leaving the representative, after presenting to him the Admiral’s letter, as I was going out of the door, I heard the sound of an organ, proceeding from the cathedral, which was very near the house: I went in, and found mass celebrating in the presence of a congregation consisting chiefly of poor people from the country, with a few of the higher ranks, many more of whom, I was assured, would have been there, could they have believed themselves secure from reproach; but the return of religious worship was yet too young for them to incur the risk----they were all kneeling at their devotions, with great appearance of fervency, while a fine grey-headed respectably looking priest, habited in his pontificals, officiated at the altar. I walked the whole length of the church, through rows of people on their knees, which formerly might have been deemed disrespect in a heretic; but I now met with nothing but courtesy and regard, all seeming conscious that the basis of their persuasion and mine was the same, however we might differ in external forms of adoration. Here I had leisure to contemplate the scene of desolation which this venerable temple presented. At least half the windows of fine old painted glass, “richly dight,” were broken; all the monuments torn down; and the bones of the dead exposed to view, and commingled with the ruins of their tombs, the names and armorial devices being utterly defaced, and the coffins taken away and converted into bullets. When the service was finished, I went within the railing which incloses the altar, to look at a large picture, representing the Ascension, the figures of which are pierced through in more than twenty places, by sabres and bayonets. An old man, who was kneeling near the rails, observing my attention fixed on the painting, told me, that in the vacant side-compartments once stood two other pictures taken from holy writ; “But,” said he, “they