T RAV

12 TRAV:ELS IN EUROPE.One procedure which an English traveller caJ;l hal'dly bring himself tothink superfltious, it is hardly possible to imprint any idea of upon theFrench; the airing of bed-linen. It it be aksed, " Is it c1ean? JJ " Touchezla,'~ is the reply of la fille, the sprightly chambrière; a pithyanswer.The drowsy traveller who had formed his plan to be away before thesun rose, finds his sheets within the hour of bed·timè wringing wet, forthis is theexplanation of the test of cleanliness.At the inns,if thetraveller must make up his mind to endure extortion, here he mayatworst count Upon civility': but it is far otherwise out of cloors.The arroganceand insolence of the postillion trihe is of an e'xtent to astoundFere." The battle of Laon took place on the day after Bonaparte had forced the Allies from Franceon the Aisne, the French advancing on the Allies by the routes from Soissons and Rheims. Thescope of the action was between Laon and Corbigny. The force the French brought forward amountedto sixtY thou'sand. The report adds, "the efforts of aIl the enemy's force have been broken againstQl1d recoiled from the bulwark whieh this fine position has afforded."In point of time, place, and action, this is one of the most interesting and instructive events in themilitary history, confined in point of time to eight days, from the events at Soissons on the third, to thefinal retreat of the French on the ~leventh; and in point of space to the arena, bounded by Rheims,the Aisne, Soissons, and Laon. And these noble efforts were made under the hardship and pressure offorty-two days incessant marching and fighting, and a winter's campaign in an enemy's.country. Theemigration ofthe children of Israel, or the retl'eat of the tenthousand under Xenophon, present nothingto be compared to it in the honour ofhuman firmness and taIent.The statement here quoted describes the adjacent country as covered with hamlets and interspersedwith smaU copses of woodland. Such then it has'continued, and such is the accurate picture of afiwoured spot. As to the post itself, it cannot but possess a powerfuI interest when Bonaparte declares-it impregnable.The French ate three dinners dressed for the Prussians, the latter four dressed by the French.Bonaparte's system was too technicaI. Something is requisite beyond the skill of the mere gladiator,to conduct war itself. It is to be hoped, however, the world will have the campaign of 1814, betweenthe Aube and Marne, in its minute details, as amaster-piece of instruction in its way. The insultoffered to fallen greatness produces disgrace only where it recoils, as it must, on the offetider's head.None is intended in the term gladiator applied to Napoleon. France cannot but be aware howmuchshe owes him. That he should have abused the greatest power that ever devolved on man is the faultof humannature. Still how completely arc talents, how completély are military fame eclipsed by thespectacle so rare as to have left hardly a trace on the general mind that such a thing ever existed! Aphilosophie monal'c~ a philanthropi9t unsoiled by politics, an Anacharsis on an imperial throne !