A beautiful instance of the quick and generous impulses to which the French are prone, is given in the case of a French cavalier, in the hottest of the action, charging furiously upon a British officer, but perceiving in the moment of assault that his adversary had lost his sword-arm, dropping the point of his saber, and courteously riding on. Peace be with that generous warrior, whatever were his fate! If he went down in the storm of battle, with the foundering fortunes of his chieftain, may the turf of Waterloo grow green above his grave! and happier far would be the fate of such a spirit, to sink amid the tempest, unconscious of defeat, than to survive and mourn over the blighted laurels of his country. In this way the two armies fought through a long and bloody day. The French with enthusiastic valor, the English with cool, inflexible courage, until Fate, as if to leave the question of superiority still undecided between two such adversaries, brought up the Prussians to decide the fortunes of the field. It was several years afterward that I visited the field of Waterloo. The plowshare had been busy with its oblivious labors, and the frequent harvest had nearly obliterated the vestiges of war. Still the blackened ruins of Hoguemont stood, a monumental pile, to mark the violence of this vehement struggle. Its broken walls, pierced by bullets, and shattered by explosions, showed the deadly strife that had taken place within; when Gaul and Briton, hemmed in between narrow walls, hand to hand and foot to foot, fought from garden to courtyard, from courtyard to chamber, with intense and concentrated rivalship. Columns of smoke turned from this vortex of battle as from a volcano: "it was," said my guide, "like a little hell upon earth." Not far off, two or three broad spots of rank, unwholesome green still marked the places where these rival warriors, after their fierce and fitful struggle, slept quietly together in the lap of their common mother earth. Over all the rest of the field peace had resumed its sway. The thoughtless whistle of the peasant floated on the air, instead of the trumpet's clangor; the team slowly labored up the hillside, once shaken by the hoofs of rushing squadrons; and wide fields of corn waved peacefully over the soldiers' graves, as summer seas dimple over the place where many a tall ship lies buried. * * * * * To the foregoing desultory notes on the French military character, let me append a few traits which I picked up verbally in one of the French provinces. They may have already appeared in print, but I have never met with them.