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had fled to Rochfort; the wreck of his army had retreated beyond the Loire; no list of killed and wounded had appeared; and, strange to say, the official journal of Paris had made out that the great Imperial army at Waterloo had gained a victory. There were, nevertheless, hundreds of people in Paris who knew to the contrary, and many were already aware that they had lost relations and friends in the great battle.
Louis XVIII. arrived, as well as I can remember, at the Tuileries on the 26th of July, 1815, and his reception by the Parisians was a singular illustration of the versatile character of the French nation, and the sudden and often inexplicable changes which take place in the feeling of the populace. When the Bourbon, in his old lumbering state carriage, drove down the Boulevards, accompanied by the Garde du Corps, the people in the streets and at the windows displayed the wildest joy, enthusiastically shouting "Vive le Roi!" amidst the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, while white sheets or white rags were made to do the duty of a Bourbon banner. The King was dressed in a blue coat with a red collar, and wore also a white