uncoffined remains of the departed brave; emblematic of the decay of man, and of the immortality of nature. The French have often been accused of selfishness, and the indifference which they often manifest to the fate of their relations, affords too much reason to believe that the social affections have little permanent influence on their minds. We must, however, admit, that they exhibit in misfortunes of a different kind--in calamities which really press upon their own enjoyments of life, the same gaiety of heart, and the same undisturbed equanimity of disposition. That gaiety in misfortune, which is so painful to every observer, when it is to be found in the midst of family-distress, becomes delightful when it exists under the deprivation of the selfish gratification to which the individual had been accustomed. Both here, and in other parts of France, where the houses of the peasants had been wholly destroyed by the allied armies, we had occasion frequently to observe and admire the equanimity of mind with which these poor people bore the loss of all their property. For an extent of 30 miles in one direction, towards the North of Champagne, every house near the great road had-been burnt or pillaged for the firewood which it contained, both by the French and the allied armies, and the people were everywhere compelled to sleep in the open air. When we spoke to them on the subject of their losses, they answered with smiles, "Tout est detruit: tout est brulè, tout, tout;" and seemed to derive amusement from the completeness of the devastation. The men were everywhere rebuilding their fallen walls, with a cheerfulness which never would have existed in England under similar circumstances; and the little children laboured in the gardens during the day, and slept under the vines at night, without exhibiting any signs of distress for their disconsolate situation. In many places, we saw groupes of these little children in the midst of the ruined houses, or under the shattered trees, playing with the musket shot, or trying to roll the cannon balls by which the destruction of their dwellings had been effected;--exhibiting a picture of youthful joy and native innocence, while sporting with the instruments of human destruction, which the genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds would have moulded into the expression of pathetic feeling, or employed as the means of moral improvement. CHAPTER V. PARIS--THE LOUVRE.