“The guarding of the Louvre was committed by turns to the British and Austrians, while this process lasted.  The Prussians said that they had done their own business for themselves, and would not now incur odium for others.  The workmen being incommoded by the crowds that now rushed to the Louvre, as the news spread of the destruction of its great collection, a military order came that no visitors should be admitted without permission from the foreign commandant of Paris.  This direction was pretty much adhered to by the sentinels as far as the exclusion of the French, but the words Je suis Anglais, were always sufficient to gain leave to pass from the Austrians:  our own countrymen were rather more strict, but, in general, foreigners could, with but little difficulty, procure admission.  The Parisians stood in crowds around the door, looking wistfully within it, as it occasionally opened to admit Germans, English, Russians, &c., into a palace of their capital from which they were excluded.  I was frequently asked by French gentlemen, standing with ladies on their arms, and kept back from the door by the guards, to take them into their own Louvre, under my protection as an unknown foreigner!  It was impossible not to feel for them in these remarkable circumstances of mortification and humiliation; and the agitation of the French public was now evidently excessive.  Every Frenchman looked a walking volcano, ready to spit forth fire.  Groups of the common people collected in the space before the Louvre, and a spokesman was generally seen, exercising the most violent gesticulations, sufficiently indicative of rage, and listened to by the others, with lively signs of sympathy with his passion.  As the packages came out, they crowded round them, giving vent to torrents of pestes, diables, sacres, and other worse interjections.

“Wherever an Englishman went, in Paris, at this time, whether into a shop or a company, he was assailed with the exclamation, ’Ah! vos compatriotes!’ and the ladies had always some wonderful story to tell him, of an embarrassment or mortification that had happened to his duke; of the evil designs of the Prince Regent, or the dreadful revenge that was preparing against the injuries of France.  The great gallery of the Louvre presented every fresh day a more and more forlorn aspect; but to the reflecting mind, it combined a number of interesting points of view.  The gallery now seemed to be the abode of all the foreigners in the French capital:—­we collected there, as a matter of course, every morning—­but it was easy to distinguish the last comers from the rest.  They entered the Louvre with steps of eager haste, and looks of anxious inquiry; they seemed to have scarcely stopped by the way—­and to have made directly for the pictures on the instant of their reaching Paris.  The first view of the stripped walls made their countenances sink under the disappointment, as to the great object of their