On leaving Soissons on the road to Laon, you go for two miles through the level plain in which the town is situated; after which you begin to ascend the steep ridge by which its eastern boundary is formed. It was on the summit of this ridge that Marshal Blucher's army was drawn up, 80,000 strong, at the time when a detachment of his troops, under Count Langeron, was defending Soissons against the French army. Immediately below this position, there is placed a small village, which bore the marks of desperate fighting; all the houses were unroofed or shattered in every part by musket balls; and many seemed to have been burnt during the struggles of which it was formerly the theatre. There is an old castle a little higher up the ascent, which was garrisoned by the allied troops; in the neighbourhood of which, we perceived numerous traces of the immense bivouacs which had been made round its walls; particularly the bodies of horses and oxen, which the Russians had left on the ground, and which the peasants had taken no pains to remove.
From thence the road runs over a high level plateau, covered with miserable corn, or worse fallows, and having an aspect of sterility very different from what we were accustomed to in the rich provinces of France. In the midst of this dreary country, we beheld with delight several deep ravines, formed by streams which fall into the Aisne, sheltered from the chilling blasts that sweep along the high plains by which they are surrounded, the steep sides of which were clothed with luxuriant woods, and in the bottom of which are placed many little farms and cottages, which exhibited a perfect picture of rural beauty. Even here, however, the terrible effects of war were clearly visible; these sequestered spots had been ravaged by the hostile armies; and the ruined walls of the peasants dwellings presented a melancholy spectacle in the midst of the profusion of beauty with which they were surrounded.
Half way between Soissons and Laon, is placed a solitary inn, at which Bonaparte stopt six hours, after the disastrous termination of the battle of Laon. The people informed us, that during this time, he was in a state of great agitation, wrote many different orders, which he destroyed as fast as they were done, and covered the floor with the fragments of his writing. Many Cossacks and Bashkirs had been quartered in this inn; the people, as usual, would not allow them any good qualities, but often repeated, with evident chagrin--"Ils mangent comme des diables; ils ont mangé tous les poulets."