_Cholera! Cholera!_ It is now the only topic. There is no other interest--no other dread--no other occupation, for Paris. The invitations for parties are _at last_ recalled--the theatres are _at last_ shut or languishing--the fearless are beginning to be afraid--people walk the streets with camphor bags and vinaigrettes at their nostrils--there is a universal terror in all classes, and a general flight of all who can afford to get away. I never saw a people so engrossed with one single and constant thought. The waiter brought my breakfast this morning with a pale face, and an apprehensive question, whether I was quite well. I sent to my boot-maker yesterday, and he was dead. I called on a friend, a Hanoverian, one of those broad-chested, florid, immortal-looking men, of whose health for fifty years, violence apart, one is absolutely certain, and he was at death's door with the cholera. Poor fellow! He had fought all through the revolution in Greece; he had slept in rain and cold, under the open sky, many a night, through a ten years' pursuit of the profession of a soldier of fortune, living one of the most remarkable lives, hitherto, of which I ever heard, and to be taken down here in the midst of ease and pleasure, reduced to a shadow with so vulgar and unwarlike a disease as this, was quite too much for his philosophy. He had been ill three days when I found him. He was emaciated to a skeleton in that short time, weak and helpless, and, though he is not a man to exaggerate suffering, he said he never had conceived such intense agony as he had endured. He assured me, that if he recovered, and should ever be attacked with it again, he would blow out his brains at the first symptom. Nothing but his iron constitution protracted the disorder. Most people who are attacked die in from three to twenty-four hours. For myself, I have felt and still feel quite safe. My rooms are in the airiest quarter of Paris, facing the gardens of the Tuileries, with windows overlooking the king's; and, as far as _air_ is concerned, if his majesty considers himself well situated, it would be quite ridiculous in so insignificant a person as myself to be alarmed. With absolute health, confident spirits, and tolerably regular habits, I have usually thought one may defy almost anything but love or a bullet. To-day, however, there have been, they say, two cases _within the palace-walls_, members of the royal household, and Casimir Perier, who probably lives well and has enough to occupy his mind, is very low with it, and one cannot help feeling that he has no certain exemption, when a disease has touched both above and below him. I went to-day to the Messagerie to engage my place for Marseilles, on the way to Italy, but the seats are all taken, in both mail-post and diligence, for a fortnight to come, and, as there are no _extras_ in France, one must wait his turn. Having done my duty to myself by the inquiry, I shall be content to remain quiet.