We dined at the Rocher de Cancale yesterday; and Counts Septeuil and Valeski composed our party.  The Rocher de Cancale is the Greenwich of Paris; the oysters and various other kinds of fish served up con gusto, attracting people to it, as the white bait draw visitors to Greenwich.  Our dinner was excellent, and our party very agreeable.

A diner de restaurant is pleasant from its novelty.  The guests seem less ceremonious and more gay; the absence of the elegance that marks the dinner-table appointments in a maison bien montee, gives a homeliness and heartiness to the repast; and even the attendance of two or three ill-dressed garcons hurrying about, instead of half-a-dozen sedate servants in rich liveries, marshalled by a solemn-looking maitre-d’hotel and groom of the chambers, gives a zest to the dinner often wanted in more luxurious feasts.

The Bois de Boulogne yesterday presented one of the gayest sights imaginable as we drove through it, for, being Sunday, all the bourgeoisie of Paris were promenading there, and in their holyday dresses.  And very pretty and becoming were the said dresses, from those of the femmes de negociants, composed of rich and tasteful materials, down to those of the humble grisettes, who, with jaunty air and roguish eyes, walked briskly along, casting glances at every smart toilette they encountered, more intent on examining the dresses than the wearers.

A good taste in dress seems innate in Frenchwomen of every class, and a confidence in their own attractions precludes the air of mauvaise honte and gaucherie so continually observable in the women of other countries, while it is so distinct from boldness that it never offends.  It was pretty to see the gay dresses of varied colours fluttering beneath the delicate green foliage, like rich flowers agitated by a more than usually brisk summer’s wind, while the foliage and the dresses are still in their pristine purity.

The beau monde occupied the drive in the centre, their vehicles of every description attracting the admiration of the pedestrians, who glanced from the well-appointed carriages, whose owners reclined negligently back as if unwilling to be seen, to the smart young equestrians on prancing steeds, who caracoled past with the air half dandy and half militaire that characterises every young Frenchman.

I am always struck in a crowd in Paris with the soldier-like air of its male population; and this air does not seem to be the result of study, but sits as naturally on them as does the look, half fierce, half mocking, that accompanies it.  There is something in the nature of a Frenchman that enables him to become a soldier in less time than is usually necessary to render the natives of other countries au fait in the routine of duty, just as he learns to dance well in a quarter of the time required to teach them to go through a simple measure.