Wishing to be able to form some idea of the military events which led to the capture of Paris, I went by the gate of St. Martin to the other places which were connected with those memorable operations.  It was on the 30th of March, 1814, that the allied armies, consisting of nearly 200,000 men, attacked the heights of Bellevue, St. Chaumont, and Montmartre; the cannonade continued from six in the morning until half past three o’clock in the afternoon, and after a bloody combat in the plains of Villette, where they were opposed by 30,000 French troops, a suspension of arms was signed a little after five o’clock.  The next day about noon, the Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia entered Paris by the barrier of Villette, at the head of 50,000 men.  A French writer remarks, that Montmartre is rendered famous by the gallant-stand made there by a small body of French troops against the whole of the allied army.  The French cannot bring themselves to allow that their nation has the worst in any contest.  They are now, however, sensible that they have been defeated, which no doubt conduces greatly to their present ill humour.  Vanity is their domineering passion, and this Buonaparte always contrived to flatter so successfully, by concealing unwelcome truths, and exaggerating success, that he is still regretted by a large number of persons, who hate the present government for the openness of their conduct, as ’after being so long accustomed to the fabulous histories with which they were amused by their late ruler, they have a contempt for that candour which informs them of their actual situation, and which would excite the approbation of a nation possessed of a less degree of vanity.  A great love of novelty is also very conspicuous in the French character.  I think it was Frederic the Great, who observed in writing to d’Alembert, ’that to please the French, they should have every two years a new king.’

From the heights of Montmartre, a vast and magnificent panorama is presented to the view.  Nearly the whole of Paris is seen from thence, and a great extent of country terminated by distant mountains.  Those who wish to have a good general idea of Paris, should not fail to ascend this eminence.  In point of size, Paris does not appear to me to be more than half the extent of London, when seen from Hampstead or Greenwich.  It was from this situation that the Emperor Alexander first surveyed Paris, and he probably was struck with the shewy appearance of the gilded dome of the Invalids, but perhaps was uninformed that it was from the Kremlin, and whilst surrounded by the flames of Moscow, that Buonaparte, gave orders for the commencement of this new and extravagant decoration to increase the splendour of Paris.  But the magnanimous perseverance of Alexander in the contest, was at last rewarded, and he saw from Montmartre that proud city, which had so often exulted at hearing of the capture of the other capitals of Europe, lying in his power.  Without the capture of Paris in its turn, the triumph of Europe for the injuries which were inflicted in most parts of it, by the French, so long the willing instruments of Buonaparte’s tyranny, had been incomplete.