Nothing more strikingıy marked the incongruous host that filled the city than the different guards of honour which were mounted at the several hotels where officers and generals of distinction resided. At one door might be seen the tall cuirassier of Austria, his white cloak falling in heavy folds over the flank and haunches of his coal-black horse, looking like some Templar of old; at another the plumed bonnet of a Highlander fluttered in the breeze, as some hardy mountaineer paced to and fro, his grey eye and stern look unmoved by the eager and prying gaze of the crowd that stopped to look upon so strange and singular a costume; here was the impatient schimmel of some Hungarian hussar, pawing the ground with restless eagerness, as his gray dolman, slashed with gold, glittered in the sun. The jager from Bohemia—the deadly marksman with the long rifle; the savage Tartar of the Ukraine, devouring his meal on his guard, and turning his dark suspicious eye around him, lest every passer-by might mean some treachery—all denoted that some representative of their country dwelt within. Nor were the horsemen less dissimilar. The stately Prussian, with his heel aplomb beneath his elbow; the Cossack, with short stirrups, crouched upon his horses mane; the English horse-artilleryman powdering along with massive accoutrements and gigantic steed; the Polish light-cavalry soldier, standing high in his stirrups, and turning his restless eye on every side, were all subjects for our curiosity and wonder. . The novelty of the spectacle seemed, however, to have greatly worn off for the Parisians, who rarely noticed the strange and uncouth figures that every moment passed before their eyes, and now talked away, as unconcernedly amid the scene of tumult and confusion as though nothing new or remarkable was going on about them; their very indifference and insouciance one of the strangest sights we witnessed.—Jack Hinton, the Guardsman.
The Illustrated London News, London, England, Week Ending November 19, 1842
