Think of Louis XVI. with a thousand gentlemen at his back, and
a mob of yelling ruffians in front of him, giving up his crown without a
fight for it; leaving his friends to be butchered, and himself sneaking
into prison! No end of little children were skipping and playing in the
sunshiny walks, with dresses as bright and cheeks as red as the flowers
and roses in the parterres. I couldn't help thinking of Barbaroux and his
bloody pikemen swarming in the gardens, and fancied the Swiss in the
windows yonder; where they were to be slaughtered when the King had
turned his back. What a great man that Carlyle is! I have read the battle
in his History so often, that I knew it before I had seen it. Our windows
look out on the obelisk where the guillotine stood. The Colonel doesn't
admire Carlyle. He says Mrs. Graham's Letters from Paris are excellent,
and we bought Scott's Visit to Paris, and Paris Re-visited, and read them
in the diligence. They are famous good reading; but the Palais Royal is
very much altered since Scott's time: no end of handsome shops; I went
there directly,--the same night we arrived, when the Colonel went to bed.
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