It is this sense of security that has given such an impetus to the English, as to render their land, in defiance of its uncertain climate, the garden of Europe. It is this that has encouraged its commerce-elevated its merchants into nobles-and fostered science and art. Never may this confidence be shaken! but let England learn from the misfortunes of other nations to estimate the blessings she enjoys.

The love of rural life, so indigenous in English hearts, and which pervades every class, is unknown in France. No sooner has a citizen, with us, attained a competence, than he secures for himself an abode in the country, where every moment that can be spared from business is passed, in making his residence and its grounds a scene of beauty and repose. He delights in seeing around him umbrageous trees, verdant lawns, and blooming flowers; and enjoys, with a true zest, the tranquil happiness his industry has honourably acquired. Many are the citizens in England thus blessed; and one whom I personally know might furnish the original for a picture seldom, if ever, to be met with elsewhere.

The respectable individual to whom I refer is a large capitalist. With a fortune that might enable him to emulate the ambitious in their pursuit of power, or outshine the ostentatious in their display of wealth, he is content to lead the life of a philosopher, but of the active and practical, rather than of the reflecting and theoretical school. See him at his country residence, planning new and judicious improvements in his grounds, overlooking and directing his workmen, suggesting salu

tary experiments on his farms, ameliorating the condition of his dependents and the breed of his cattle; and it would be supposed that he had passed his life in agricultural pursuits, and thought of nothing else. Yet in two hours after, this worthy individual may be seen acting as the presiding spirit of one of the largest houses of business in London; examining every new invention in the useful arts; giving orders in various branches of trade that furnish occupation for hundreds; and in his commercial relations with other countries, by his probity, intelligence, and high principles, extending the honourable reputation of a British merchant throughout the civilized world. At night, this gentleman may be seen perusing some clever work: and in the morning, at an early hour, he is again in his fruitful fields.

Such are the men to be found in happy England; but rarely, if ever, are they to be met with where a revolution has left its destructive traces.

6th. I have taken my last ride in the environs of Vienne. There is something sad in viewing any place with the certainty that we shall see it no more; and this feeling I experienced to-day, when, pausing at each point commanding a fine prospect, I gazed for the last time on the beautiful country around. How many bosky dells, moss-clad hills, foaming cataracts, and sylvan shades, rarely seen, except by shepherd or husbandman's eye, have I become familiar with in the wild regions of the Viennean hills! And how little should I have appreciated their beauty, had I con

fined my peregrinations, as so many do, to the sterile and unpicturesque high roads. To-morrow we depart for Grenoble.

9th. We stopped a day at Lyons, to enjoy the society of our friend Mons. Artaud; and rarely have I met a person whose conversation is more interesting and instructive. He has furnished us with letters of introduction to half the cognoscenti of the south of France and Italy; so that it will not be his fault if I do not acquire a more than ordinary acquaintance with the antiquities of both countries.

Comte D'Hautpoul, colonel of the 9th chasseurs, has kindly accompanied us to Grenoble, and his society enhances our enjoyment of the new scenes presented to us. In him are united the brave soldier, the learned scholar, and accomplished gentleman, whose conversation is replete with interest and information.

The route from Lyons to Grenoble is through a rich and fertile country, and the approach to the latter town is striking and imposing. It is surrounded by rocky mountains of the most picturesque form; behind which are seen towering still loftier ones, furnishing, as it were, a double rampart of defence to the town. I have nowhere beheld mountains so abrupt as here, or offering such a variety in their forms; and they approach so near the town as to render the contrast between their wild and grotesque appearance, and its civilization, provincial as it is, very striking.

We visited the gate to-day, now become historical, by which Napoleon made his entry to Grenoble on his memorable return from Elba. The spot was pointed

out to us on which Colonel Henry Labedoyère, at the head of his regiment, hoisted the imperial eagle, and joined Napoleon; and we entered the little inn where the latter rested while waiting the event of the gates being opened for his admittance. This was the first fortress that surrendered to him-an event ruinous in its consequences to Napoleon as well as to France; for had it resisted, the battle of Waterloo had been spared. I write this in the chamber in which this wonderful man reposed, on the night of his arrival, and have been listening to a detail by a spectator, of his reception and conduct on that occasion. He is described as looking deadly pale, care-worn, and melancholy; but making violent efforts to recover his self-possession, and to assume a cheerfulness which it was evident he was far from feeling. It was in front of the window of this room that the gates were brought to him by a vast concourse of people, who hailed him with acclamations, and addressed him in the following words ::

"Napoleon, our emperor, our glory, we could not offer you the keys of your good town of Grenoble, but we have brought you the gates."

Napoleon is said to have betrayed great emotion on hearing this address; his pale cheeks became tinged for a moment with a hectic flush, and his eyes-those eyes which are said to have possessed an influence almost magical, over those on whom their piercing glances fell-sparkled with animation for a few brief moments, and then resumed their previous expression of gloom. In this room, and leaning his elbow on the table on which I now write, he held a long conversa

tion with some of the principal of his followers, and with those officers who had here revolted to his standard; in which he entered into an explanation of his conduct, and the motives that actuated it, with an anxiety and consciousness, which betrayed his painful sense of the necessity of the explanation.—Fallen must have been the fortunes of the once stern and proud emperor, when he could condescend to explain why he was again in the land whence he had been exiled, and whose reception of him was at best but doubtful!-The chief reason he urged for his return, was his having ascertained that the Congress had determined on transporting him to St. Helena. Little could he have forseen that this very return only served to accelerate the event it was meant to avert! but it is thus ever that weak mortals blindly rush on the destiny, of which their own errors have laid the foundation.

If ever treason admits of palliation, it surely was in the case of those soldiers who, led on for years to victory by this wonderful man, again saw that standard unfurled, beneath which they had acquired glory, and beheld him whom they had so long been taught to regard as scarcely less than invincible, return from exile to conduct them again to conquest and fame. All their associations of the past, and hopes for the future, were stirred by his presence; and his fallen state only served to awaken every spark of generosity and enthusiasm in their natures. With the government they were forsaking they had no sympathy; they had not yet learned to appreciate the advantages of a peaceful reign; and the courage and vanity for which the natives of France, and more especially its soldiers,