32 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



church, called St. Peter's, built in form of à ra- 

 tiindo, and arched over with fo much folidity*, 

 that a greater number of thofe bombs ftruck the 

 cupola, without being able to injure it, but re- 

 bounded on the adjoining palaces, which they fet 

 on fire, and partly confumed. Matters were ftill 

 in the fame flate as at the conclufioii of the war, 

 at the time of my arrival. They had only piled 

 up, along fome of the ftreets, the (tones which 

 encumbered them ; fo that they formed, on each 

 lide, long parapets of blackened (lone. You might 

 fee halves of palaces ftanding, laid open from the 

 roof down to the cellars. It was eafy to diftin- 

 guiili in them the extremity of ftair- cafes, painted 

 cielings, little clofets lined with Chinefe papers, 

 fragments of mirror glaffes, of marble cliimnies, of 

 fmoked gildings. Of others, nothing remained, 

 except maffy ftacks of chimneys rifing amidft the 

 lubbifh, like long black and white pyramids. 

 More than a third part of the city was reduced to 

 this deplorable condition. You faw the inhabi- 

 tants moving backward and forward, with a fettled 

 gloom on their faces, formerly fo gay, that they 

 were called the Frenchmen of Germany. Thofe 

 ruins, which exhibited a multitude of accidents 

 lingularly remarkable, from their forms, their co- 

 lours, and their grouping, threw the mind into a 

 deep melancholy ; for you faw nothing in them 

 but the traces of the wrath of a King;, who had not 



levelled 



