We happened to go into a little stationer's shop, kept by a widow and her three daughters, who received us almost with adoration because we were English. They all began to talk at once, and relieved their minds by pouring out a torrent of invectives against those detested tyrants, "Ces fléaux du genre humain," as they called them. All their goods had been seized; their shop (which was not then a stationer's) completely stripped of its contents, under the pretence of its being filled with British and colonial produce, which they said was not the case; and a considerable quantity of continental manufactures had also been carried away. "But _that_ was nothing," the poor mother said, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, "_that_ she could have borne, for though it seemed heavy at the time, she thought less of it now;--but her five sons (fine handsome young men, they were, as ever a mother bore), her five sons were all taken for soldiers, and perished in the French wars; some in the retreat from Russia, and some in the subsequent campaign in Germany." The tears streamed down the cheeks of one of these young women, as she spoke to me of her "poor brothers." I can give no idea of the bitterness, the rancour, the hatred, and above all, the volubility of the abuse which these poor women poured out against the French. We got away from them with difficulty; and though the deep sense of their own wrongs rankled in their minds, and aggravated the resentment and detestation which they must naturally feel towards the authors of so much misery, yet we found the same sentiments, in greater or in less degree, among all the Belgians with whom we conversed, or whom we heard conversing. I had always understood that the French (and Napoleon in particular) were highly popular in Antwerp, but from some most respectable old-established merchants, both British and Belgic, we learned that the inhabitants were decidedly hostile to the French, and that they were both feared and hated by all, excepting the very dregs of society, and those individuals who had made fortunes under their administration.