SIR WALTER SCOTT IN PARIS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 122, 17 December 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

SIR WALTER SCOTT IN PARIS.

Probably few people are aware that Sir Walter Scott was one of the tirst British tourists to visit the famous battlefield of Waterloo. He subsequently rode to Paris in the track of tho troops, and has left an interesting—one may almost say a topical—note on the relative behaviour of the British and Prussians. The latter did not ill-treat the peasants, but their rapacity was terrible, their powers of eating and drinking phenomenal, and their capacity for pillage unbounded. Close by Paris, where he arrived on September 6, 1815, Scott saw some of the "most dirty and savage Hussars he had yet seen," using the gilt picture frames of a French gentleman's mansion as fuel to boil their camp kettles. Paris itself was full of foreign troops, wild Costacks, whom the French called "Nortlu country cupids." greenclad Russians (nicknamed " glierkins"), and the English redcoats camped in the Champs Klysee. The Duko of Wellington occupied a fine town mansion near the Place do la Concorde, which was brilliantly illuminated in liouour of his Imperial Allies. Sir Walter, attending General Cathcart's party in Yeomanry uniform, had an amusing conversation with the Emperor Alexander of Russia. Seeing that the great writer limped, the Czar, not unnaturally, supposed that he had been wounded in the war, and asked him where lie-had served.. etc.