This word "luggage," which has just fallen from our pen, would seem to call the attention to the rôle of the Sunshade or the Umbrella in the Travels of the last century. Was the Parasol considered as indispensable luggage before going on any expedition? We cannot affirm this. The author of /A Journey from Paris to Saint-Cloud by Sea and by Land/ writes, before embarking at Pont-Royal: "I kept for my personal carriage only my repeater, my pocket-flask full of /sans pareille/ water, my gloves, my boots, a whip, my riding-coat, my pocket pistols, my fox-skin muff, my green taffety Umbrella, and my big varnished walking-stick." But here we have more of a pretty conceit of the eighteenth century, a sort of cotquean traveller, who encumbers himself with useless objects. We have consulted many /Almanacks serving as Guides for Travellers/, and containing "a detail of everything which is necessary to travel comfortably, usefully, and agreeably," from 1760 to 1765: nowhere, however, was the Umbrella prescribed, either for foot passengers or for those on horseback; on the contrary, the anonymous editor of those guides seems sometimes to laugh at the simplicity of the tourist from Paris to Saint-Cloud, and he adds that a traveller in good health ought to content himself with strong boots and a cloak of good cloth. Even a walking-stick, he says, often consoles the walker only in imagination. The Umbrella-Walking-stick--who would believe it?--was, however, known from 1758, and very convenient Parasols were then made, of which the dimensions could be reduced so as to suit the pocket. A certain Reynard announced in 1761 Parasols "which fold on themselves triangularly, and become no thicker or more voluminous than a crush-hat." These Umbrellas were, it seems, very common about 1770: the stick was in two pieces, united by a screw, and the ribs were folded back several times. But let us not abandon the chronological order in returning thus upon our own steps, after the example of a romance writer of 1840. We have scarcely caught a glimpse of the Sunshade in our passage through the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, in the desultory speed of this free chat, in which our prose leaps as in a steeple-chase of charming designs. We have confounded occasionally the two denominations /Sunshade/ and /Umbrella/ in the more general word /Parasol/: but if we have travelled a little in every direction, we have not had the leisure to stop anywhere as a lounger or analyst. And here we are at the beginning of this century, at the Empire, but the nation is helmed, the sun of Austerlitz requires not a Sunshade; woman holds merely the second place in this hour in which France handles but the costly toys of glory, and if we find at all an Umbrella, it is in the field, with the general staff of the army, during some misty night, when it is used to shelter the commander-in-chief, who studies on his map the plan of battle of the morn.