By-and-by came a
squadron or so of dragoons of the National Guards: they are covered with
straps, buckles, aguillettes, and cartouche-boxes, and make under their
tricolor cock's-plumes a show sufficiently warlike. The point which
chiefly struck me on beholding these military men of the National Guard
and the Line, was the admirable manner in which they bore a cold that
seemed to me as sharp as the weather in the Russian retreat, through
which cold the troops were trotting without trembling and in the utmost
cheerfulness and good-humor. An aide-de-camp galloped past in white
pantaloons. By heavens! it made me shudder to look at him.
With this profound reflection, we turned away to the right towards the
hanging-bridge (where we met a detachment of young men of the Ecole de
l'Etat Major, fine-looking lads, but sadly disfigured by the wearing
of stays or belts, that make the waists of the French dandies of a most
absurd tenuity), and speedily passed into the avenue of statues leading
up to the Invalides.
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