The day was thus distributed in London: at six o'clock in the morning, one hastened to a party of pleasure, consisting of a breakfast in the country; one returned to lunch in London; one changed one's dress to walk in Bond Street or Hyde Park; one dressed again to dine at half-past seven; one dressed again for the Opera; at midnight, one dressed once more for an evening party or rout. What a life of enchantment! I should a hundred times have preferred the galleys. The supreme height of fashion was to be unable to make one's way into the small rooms of a private ball, to remain on the stair-case blocked by the crowd, and to find one's self nose to nose with the Duke of Somerset[180]; a state of beatitude to which I once attained. The English of the new breed are infinitely more frivolous than we; their heads are turned for a "show:" if the Paris executioner were to go to London, all England would run after him. Did not Marshal Soult enrapture the ladies[181], like Blücher, whose mustachios they kissed? Our marshal, who is not Antipater[182], nor Antigonus[183], nor Seleucus[184], nor Antiochus[185], nor Ptolemy[186], nor any of the captain-kings of Alexander, is a distinguished soldier, who pillaged Spain while getting beaten, and with whom Capuchins redeemed their lives with pictures. But it is true that, in March 1814, he published a furious proclamation against Bonaparte, whom he received in triumph a few days later: he has since done his Easter duty at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin. They show his old boots in London for a shilling. [Sidenote: English frivolity.] All reputations are quickly made on the banks of the Thames and as quickly lost. In 1822, I found that great city immersed in the recollection of Bonaparte; the people had passed from the vilification of "Nick" to a stupid enthusiasm. Memoirs of Bonaparte swarmed; his bust adorned every chimney-piece; his engravings shone in the windows of all the picture-dealers; his colossal statue, by Canova[187], decorated the Duke of Wellington's stair-case. Could they not have consecrated another sanctuary to Mars enchained? This deification seems rather the work of the vanity of a door-porter than of the honour of a warrior. General, you did not defeat Napoleon at Waterloo: you only forced the last link of a destiny already shattered.