to the government as ever they could
supply; and retail vendors could scarcely
keep pace with the demand for flannel
shirts, potted meats, sardines, sausages,
razors and other cutlery, railway rugs,
mattresses, canteens, pipes, cigar-cases,
and other camp luxuries and campaigning
comforts. The officers had all received
their " entrée en campagne," a donation of
so many hundred francs allotted at the
commencement of war, and were never
tired of shopping. They bought everything,
except books. The court- yard of the
Chaos used to be littered with packing-cases,
kegs, sacks, packages, and tin cans:
the private stores of the Grand Army.
Vividly do I remember a most dashing
turn-out belonging to General Soleil, of the
artillery—a break, with the general's name
and titles conspicuously painted upon it, and
which was as handsome as ever paint and
varnish, wheels of a bright scarlet,
electro-silvered lamps and fittings, could make it.
Every afternoon the general, with a select
party of epauletted and decorated friends,
used to take a drive about the town in this
imposing vehicle, to which were attached
four splendid grey Percheron horses, with
harness of untanned leather. And then, a
change of head-quarters being imminent,
the break took in cargo for active service.
Truffled goose-liver pies from Strasbourg,
andouillettes from Troyes, pigs' feet from
Sainte Menéhould, green chartreuse and
curaçoa, fine champagne cognac,
Huntley and Palmer's biscuits, Allsopp's
pale ale—the capacity of the break had
stomach for all these goodies, to say
nothing of boxes of cigars in such numbers
that as you passed the break you caught
ambrosial whiffs, reminding you equally of
the cedars of Lebanon and Mr. Carrera's
tobacco-shop. I wonder who ate and
drank all these dainties? Prince Frederick
Charles? Bismark the omnivorous? or
Hans Göbbell, full private in the Uhlans?

And so they went on in their madness,
growing madder every day, and doing
scarcely anything, as it subsequently turned
out, to put the Grand Army in real fighting
trim. The noise and hubbub, the babbling
and boasting of the Chaos, became at last
so intolerable, that I was fain to wander
away, far from the revellers, far from the
great Carnival of Insanity—down by the
river banks anywhere out of Bedlam,
where there was some stillness and peace.
Very often, late at night, I have crossed
the bridge, and paced the broad esplanade
before the Prefecture. A great silken banner
floated over the roof: two voltigeurs of the
guard stood sentry by the gateway; from
time to time dusty couriers would gallop
up to the portals. Dragoon horses were
picketed to the railings; and officers and
orderlies would emerge, and mount, and
spur away in hottest haste. Cæsar was
there, Cæsar and the chiefs of the legions.
Mine eyes were wont to sweep the long
lines of windows, and wonder which of the
brilliantly-lit rooms could be his. That
upper chamber, perhaps, where the light
burned so steadily and so late. There, I
thought, at least were sanity, sagacity,
foresight, and a wise prescience of possible
disaster. In that upper chamber was the
cold, calm, long-headed, imperturbable man,
who nineteen years before, on the night
when he made that coup d'état which
gave him an empire, had sat with his feet
on the fender in his room at the Elysée,
slowly puffing his cigarette; and, to all the
remonstrances and the objections of the
timid, and the half-hearted, gave for answer,
"Let my orders be executed." Nineteen
years ago! It seemed but yesterday since
I had stood in the Faubourg St. Honoré,
looking at the brightly-illumined windows
of the Elysée, and wondering which was
the room of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.
He was the same man no doubt now, at
Metz, as in the days when he put down
liberty, equality, and fraternity by means
of musketry—the same cold, calm, resolute
Thinker and Doer, who wanted only his
"orders executed." I had seen him twice
at the railway station, and in the cathedral
of Metz. He was not, they said, in very
good health, and walked feebly. But he
had always been somewhat shaky as
regards the lower limbs. The mind was
still of crystal, the will of iron, no doubt.

Error, delusion; and that which may be
termed the deadest of sells generally!
There must have been ten thousand times
more Chaos, more hallucination, delusion,
and delirium in that room at the Prefecture
last August than at the Hotel Chaos itself.
Now the Prussians have got into Metz, I may
pay another visit to the mad city, and the
madder hotels. But I shall go in disguise
with green spectacles and a false nose;
for Metz must be in a frightful state of
impecuniosity by this time, and, pricked
by the javelins of scarcity, the waiters
may make such fearful demands on me for
bygone and fictitious scores, that a life's
earnings might not suffice to discharge the
prodigious bill. They would expect me
to pay the debts of the dead; and how