confiding to her—­for had I deliberated I should have been lost—­the remainder of the pleasing duty it had been predestined I was to have the honour to perform, we glided through couples darting in various directions for similar objects, until, finding ourselves in a formal procession sufficiently near to the lady in question, we proceeded, at a funereal pace, towards our doom, which proved to be a most delightful one.  Seated in obedience to the orders I had received, we found ourselves exactly opposite “le Prince,” who had, of course, on his right and left, the two ladies of highest rank.  The table was very richly ornamented, and it was quite delightful to observe at a glance what probably in mathematics, or even in philosophy, it might have been rather troublesome to explain—­namely, the extraordinary difference which existed between forty or fifty ladies and gentlemen standing in a parallelogram in a drawing-room, and the very same number and the very same faces, rectilinearly seated in the very same form in a dining-room.  It was the difference between sterility and fertility, between health and sickness, between joy and sorrow, between winter and summer; in fact, between countenances frozen into Lapland formality and glowing with tropical animation and delight.  Everybody’s mouth had apparently something kind to say to its neighbour’s eyes; and the only alloy was that, as each person had two neighbours, his lips, under a sort of embarras des richesses, occasionally found it rather difficult to express all that was polite and pleasing to both.’  Dinner being over, all returned to the drawing-room in the same formal order.  Each gentleman bowed ceremoniously to the lady he had conducted, she withdrew her arm, ’and the sofas were again to be seen fringed by rows of satin shoes; while the carpet, in all other directions, was subjected to the pressure of boots, that often remained for a short time motionless as before.  A general buzz of conversation, however, soon enlivened the room; and the President, gladly availing himself of it, mingled familiarly with the crowd.’

In the course of his rambles through Paris, Sir Francis visits various casernes or military barracks, and military schools.  He also makes sundry investigations into the functions and materiel of the French army, and finally, in company with Louis Napoleon, goes to a review.  The sum of these proceedings is, that he is much struck with the progress made by the French in strategy and military manoeuvres, especially in their musket-ball firing, against which, he says, we have no chance.  Everybody knows that our author is an alarmist, ever sighing over our want of national defences, and dreaming of invasion and rapine.  At the same time, his details on military affairs are worth the notice of those to whom the business of military education is intrusted.