About noon the travellers set out to explore the scenes still bearing evidence of the conflict so recently ended. They reached the Champ de Mars in time to see several regiments of the National Guard arrive and pitch their tents. They were survivors of the army of General Chanzy, which had suffered so terribly; and Mr. Buckham notes of them: “All were scarcely older than mere boys. They were in a dreadfully ragged and distressed condition.” Everywhere, indeed, the pride and glory of war had given place to its most forbidding aspects. At Pont de Jour the shells had made terrible havoc, almost totally destroying every house in the place. At St. Cloud it was the same. The palace which the Emperor left on the 18th of July 1870, at the head of the Grande Armée, to march to Berlin, was almost completely demolished; and a street of once beautiful mansions near it was a mere pile of ruins. This was the work of the besieged, in their efforts to dislodge the Germans, who were carousing in the magnificent halls of the imperial palace. Everywhere the travellers were struck with the evidences of the blind fury of the populace. The “N,” the “E,” and every symbol of the emperor, had been effaced or broken. Statues of the First Napoleon, and a beautiful statue of the Empress Josephine that adorned the avenue which bore her name, had been thrown down and flung into the river. Even the heads of the bronze eagles on the Grand Opera House had been broken off. They sought in vain for a conveyance to hire. At every livery stable they were told that the horses had all been killed and eaten. Towards evening the excitement became intense, under the apprehension that the Red Republicans, who were evidently gaining ground, would take complete possession of Paris. The landlord of the Hôtel Chatham was greatly excited, and cautioned his guests against venturing out of doors. But an old citizen of Edinburgh, Mr. Nimmo, who was well known to Mr. Nelson, undertook to be their guide. He had himself been a leader in the political movements of the old Scottish reformers at a time when such proceedings imperilled his safety; and so, taking refuge in Paris, he had resided there for forty-nine years, and now found himself at home in the _furor_ of a fresh revolution. Under his escort they traversed the deserted and gloomy thoroughfares, till they reached the Place Vendôme, where a military guard arrested their progress, and compelled them to pursue a different route. When they passed the end of the Louvre, and turned in the direction of the boulevard leading towards the Place Vendôme, they suddenly became involved in a disorderly mass of soldiers; and within half an hour after they reached their hotel, the Place Vendôme was captured by the mob. A little later the Hôtel de Ville was in the hands of the Communists, the government fled from Paris, and the revolution was an accomplished fact. The Grande Armée disappeared.