Before I quitted Edinburgh, I received a letter from the gentleman to whom my uncle had given me an introduction; he acquainted me that my uncle had informed him that I was about visiting France, and that he had taken the liberty of introducing me to him. The Marquis de ---- (such was his title--his name I omit for obvious reasons) expressed with great warmth his delight at having it in his power to exhibit the gratitude he felt to my uncle, and urged me with the most pressing terms to come at once to his home, and pass away there at least so much time as might accustom me to the _spoken_ French language (I could easily read it), that my visit to Paris might be more profitable and agreeable--and it should be both, he was so good as to say, at least as far as it depended on himself and his friends. I wrote him by the return mail to thank him for his kindness, and to inform him that I should at once set out for his hospitable home. I shall never forget the six months I passed away in the Chateau de Bardy: the happiness of those days was checkered only by my departure and by the incident I shall presently relate. And even after I quitted that noble mansion, the kindness of its inmates still watched over me, and opened homes to me even in that great Maelstrom of life--Paris. It was toward the end of the month of October--the most delightful month of the seasons in France--as I was returning on foot from Orleans to the Chateau de Bardy, from a rather prolonged pedestrian exploration in that interesting neighborhood, where I had accurately examined all of the curiosities, thanks to an ample memoir of my noble host (in those days 'Handbooks' were unknown, and Murray was busy publishing Byron and Moore), when I thought I caught a glimpse of some soldiers. I was not mistaken: on the road before me a Prussian regiment was marching. I quickened my pace to hear the military music, for I was extremely partial to it; but the band ceased playing, and no sound was heard except an occasional roll of the kettle-drum at long intervals to mark the uniform step of the soldiers. After following them for a half hour, I saw the regiment enter a small plain, surrounded by a fir grove. I asked a captain, whose acquaintance I had made, if his men were about to be drilled. 'No,' said he, 'they are about to try, and perhaps to shoot, a soldier of my company for having stolen something from the house where he was billeted.' 'What,' said I, 'are they going to try, condemn, and execute him, all in the same moment?' 'Yes,' said he, 'those are the provisions of the capitulation.' This word 'capitulation' was to him an unanswerable argument, as if everything had been provided for in the capitulation, the crime and the punishment, justice and humanity. 'And if you have any curiosity to see it,' added the captain, 'I will place you where you may see everything. It won't be long.'