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I had left it a typical frontier French city, touched alike by the glaery, yet ever alive with the gayety of that lively, changeable people; I returned, after those five years of burial in forest depths, to discover it under the harsh rule of Spain, and outwardly so quiet as to appear fairly deserted of inhabitants The Spanish ships of war--I counted nineteen--lay anchored in the broad river, their prows up streauns depressed so as to coreeted h stone pavements echoed to the constant tread of aruard at nearly every corner Not a few halted , and once I was haled before an officer, who, hearing uage, was kind enough to provide ood within the lines Yet it proved far fro about, as drunken soldiers, dressed in every variety of unifor the narroalks, ready to pick a quarrel with any stranger chancing their hile groups of officers, gorgeous in white coats and gold lace, lounged in shaded corners, greeting each passer-by with jokes that stung Every tavern was crowded to the threshold with roistering blades whose drunken curses, directed against both French and English, quickly taughtwell away from their co long enough in one place to become involved in useless controversy

It all appeared so unnatural that I felt strangely saddened by the change, and continued ai about the town as curiosity led, resolved to leave its confines at the earliest opportunity I stared long at the strange vessels of hose like I had never before seen, and finally, as I now rerass of the Place d'Ar the evolutions of a battery of artillery This was all new toas it did a line of service seldom met with in the wilderness; and soon quite a nue of the parade Auish a few French faces, with here and there a woman of the lower orders, ill clad and coarse of speech A party of soldiers, boisterous and quarrelsome fro trouble, I drew farther back toward the curb, and standing thus, well away from others, enjoyed an unobstructed view across the entire field