The fatigued Foot grounded arms in the _Piazza Grande_. The detached squadrons of cavalry scoured the deserted streets in search of soldiers' quarters. Guided by the displaced authorities, the _cuartels_ were soon discovered; and, before night, a new _regime_ ruled the City of the Angels. The priest had given place to the soldier! CHAPTER TWO. A CITY OF DEVILS. Our conquering army thus easily admitted into the City of the Angels, soon discovered it to be deserving of a far different appellation; and before we were a week within its walls there were few of our fellows who would not have preferred taking the chance of "quarters in Timbuctoo." Notwithstanding our antipathy to the place, we were forced to remain in it for a period of several months, as it was not deemed prudent to advance directly upon the capital. Between the "Vega" of Puebla and the "Valle" of Mexico extends a vast wall--the main "cordillera" of the Mexican Andes. It affords several points capable of easy defence, against a force far superior to that of the defenders. It was reported that one or other of these points would be fortified and sustained. Moreover, the city of Mexico was not to be considered in the same light as the many others in that Imperial Republic, already surrendered to us with such facile freedom--Puebla among the number. The latter was but an outlying post; the former the heart and centre of a nation--up to this time unvisited by foreign foe--for three centuries untainted by the stranger's footstep. Around it would be gathered the chivalry of the land, ready to lay down its life in the defence of the modern city; as its Aztec owners freely did, when it was the ancient Tenochtitlan. Labouring under this romantic delusion, our timid commander-in-chief decreed that we should stay for a time in the City of the Angels. It was a stay that cost us several thousands of brave men; for, as it afterwards proved, we might have continued our triumphant march into the capital without hostile obstruction. Fate, or Scott, ruling it, we remained in La Puebla. If a city inhabited by _real_ angels be not a pleasanter place of abode than that of the sham sort at Puebla, I fancy there are few of my old comrades would care to be quartered in it. It is true we were in an enemy's town, with no great claim to hospitality. The people from the first stayed strictly within doors-- that is, those of them who could afford to live without exposing their persons upon the street. Of the tradesmen we had enough; and, at their prices, something more. But the women--those windows full of dark-eyed _doncellas_ we had seen upon our first entry, and but rarely afterwards--appeared to have been suddenly spirited away; and, with some exceptions, we never set eyes on them again!