The description of these scenes is, of course, quite incapable of conveying any notion of their general effect. You must have the solemnity of the actors, as they Meess and Milor one another, and the perfect gravity and good faith with which the audience listen to them. Our stage Frenchman is the old Marquis, with sword, and pig-tail, and spangled court coat. The Englishman of the French theatre has, invariably, a red wig, and almost always leather gaiters, and a long white upper Benjamin: he remains as he was represented in the old caricatures, after the peace, when Vernet designed him somewhat after the following fashion. [Illustration] And to conclude this catalogue of blunders: in the famous piece of the _Naufrage de la Méduse_, the first act is laid on board an English ship-of-war, all the officers of which appeared in light blue, or green, coats (the lamp-light prevented our distinguishing the colour accurately), in little blue coats, and TOP-BOOTS! * * * * * Let us not attempt to deaden the force of this tremendous blow by any more remarks. The force of blundering can go no farther. Would a playwright or painter of the Chinese empire have stranger notions about the barbarians than our neighbours, who are separated from us but by two hours of salt water? MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES The palace of Versailles has been turned into a bric-à-brac shop of late years; and its time-honoured walls have been covered with many thousand yards of the worst pictures that eye ever looked on. I don’t know how many leagues of battles and sieges the unhappy visitor is now obliged to march through, amidst a crowd of chattering Paris cockneys, who are never tired of looking at the glories of the Grenadier Français; to the chronicling of whose deeds this old palace of the old kings is now altogether devoted. A whizzing, screaming steam-engine rushes hither from Paris, bringing shoals of _badauds_ in its wake. The old _coucous_ are all gone, and their place knows them no longer. Smooth asphaltum terraces, tawdry lamps, and great hideous Egyptian obelisks, have frightened them away from the pleasant station which they used to occupy under the trees of the Champs Elysées; and though the old _coucous_ were just the most uncomfortable vehicles that human ingenuity ever constructed, one can’t help looking back to the days of their existence with a tender regret, for there was pleasure, then, in the little trip of three leagues; and who ever had pleasure in a railroad journey?--Does any reader of this venture to say that, on such a voyage, he ever dared to be pleasant? Do the most hardened stokers joke with one another?--I don’t believe it. Look into every single car of the train, and you will see that every single face is solemn. They take their seats gravely, and are silent, for the most part, during the journey; they dare not look out of window, for fear of being blinded by the smoke that comes