worn by sailors, and have heard that they are commonly and very sensibly too, locked up until they are wanted. Take another example: suppose artillerymen were incessantly compelled to walk about with a pyramid of twenty-four pound shot in one pocket, a lighted fuse and a few barrels of gunpowder in the other these objects would, as you may imagine, greatly inconvenience the artilleryman in his peaceful state.

The newspaper writer is therefore most likely mistaken in saying that the seamen were in the sévère tenue du bord, or by bord" meaning "abordage"- which operation they were not, in a harmless church, hung round with velvet and wax-candles, and filled with ladies, surely called upon to perform. Nor indeed can it be reasonably supposed that the picked men of the crack frigate of the French navy are a 66 good specimen" of the rest of the French marine, any more than a cuirassed colossus at the gate of the Horse Guards can be considered a fair sample of the British soldier of the line. The sword and pistol, however, had no doubt their effect the former was in its sheath, the latter not loaded, and I hear that the French ladies are quite in raptures with these charming loups-de-mer.

Let the warlike accoutrements then pass. It was necessary, perhaps, to strike the Parisians with awe, and therefore the crew was armed in this fierce fashion; but why should the captain begin to swagger as well as his men? and why did the Prince de Joinville lug out sword and pistol so early? or why, if he thought fit to make preparations, should the official journals brag of them afterwards as proofs of his extraordinary courage?

Here is the case. The English Government makes him a present of the bones of Napoleon: English workmen work for nine hours without ceasing, and dig the coffin out of the ground: the English Commissioner hands over the key of the box to the French representative, Monsieur Chabot: English horses carry the funeral car down to the sea-shore, accompanied by the English Governor, who has actually left his bed to walk in the procession and to do the French nation honor.

After receiving and acknowledging these politenesses, the French captain takes his charge on board, and the first thing we afterwards hear of him is the determination "qu'il a su faire passer into all his crew, to sink rather than yield up the body of the Emperor aux mains de l'étranger into the hands of the foreigner. My dear Monseigneur, is not this par trop fort? Suppose the foreigner" had wanted the coffin, could he not have kept it? Why show this uncalled-for valor, this extraor

dinary alacrity at sinking? Sink or blow yourself up as much as you please, but your Royal Highness must see that the genteel thing would have been to wait until you were asked to do so, before you offended good-natured, honest people, who heaven help them! - have never shown themselves at all murderously inclined towards you. A man knocks up his cabins forsooth, throws his tables and chairs overboard, runs guns into the portholes, and calls le quartier du bord où existaient ces chambres, Lacedæmon. Lacedæmon! There is a province, O Prince, in your royal father's dominions, a fruitful parent of heroes in its time, which would have given a much better nickname to your quartier du bord: you should have called it Gascony.

"Sooner than strike we'll all ex-pi-er

On board of the Bell-e Pou-le.'

Such fanfaronading is very well on the part of Tom Dibdin, but a person of your Royal Highness's "pious and severe dignity" should have been above it. If you entertained an idea that war was imminent, would it not have been far better to have made your preparations in quiet, and when you found the war rumor blown over, to have said nothing about what you intended to do? Fie upon such cheap Lacedæmonianism! There is no poltroon in the world but can brag about what he would have done : however, to do your Royal Highness's nation justice, they brag and fight too.

This narrative, my dear Miss Smith, as you will have remarked, is not a simple tale merely, but is accompanied by many moral and pithy remarks which form its chief value, in the writer's eyes at least, and the above account of the sham Lacedæmon on board the "Belle Poule" has a double-barrelled morality, as I conceive. Besides justly reprehending the French propensity towards braggadocio, it proves very strongly a point on which I am the only statesman in Europe who has strongly insisted. In the Paris Sketch Book" it was stated that the French hate us. They hate us, my dear, profoundly and desperately, and there never was such a hollow humbug in the world as the French alliance. Men get a character for patriotism in France merely by hating England. Directly they go into strong opposition (where, you know, people are always more patriotic than on the ministerial side), they appeal to the people, and have their hold on the people by hating England in common with them. Why? It is a long story, and the hatred may be accounted for by many reasons both political and social.

Any time these eight hundred years this ill-will has been going on, and has been transmitted on the French side from father to son. On the French side, not on ours: we have had no, or few, defeats to complain of, no invasions to make us angry; but you see that to discuss such a period of time would demand a considerable number of pages, and for the present we will avoid the examination of the question.

But they hate us, that is the long and short of it; and you see how this hatred has exploded just now, not upon a serious cause of difference, but upon an argument: for what is the Pasha of Egypt to us or them but a mere abstract opinion? For the same reason the Little-endians in Lilliput abhorred the Big-endians; and I beg you to remark how his Royal Highness Prince Ferdinand Mary, upon hearing that this argument was in the course of debate between us, straightway flung his furniture overboard and expressed a preference for sinking his ship rather than yielding it to the étranger. Nothing came of this wish of his, to be sure; but the intention is everything. Unlucky circumstances denied him the power, but he had the will.

Well, beyond this disappointment, the Prince de Joinville had nothing to complain of during the voyage, which terminated happily by the arrival of the "Belle Poule " at Cherbourg, on the 30th of November, at five o'clock in the morning. A telegraph made the glad news known at Paris, where the Minister of the Interior, Tanneguy-Duchâtel (you will read the name, Madam, in the old Anglo-French wars), had already made "immense preparations" for receiving the body of Napoleon.

The entry was fixed for the 15th of December.

On the 8th of December at Cherbourg the body was transferred from the "Belle Poule" frigate to the "Normandie' steamer. On which occasion the mayor of Cherbourg deposited, in the name of his town, a gold laurel branch upon the coffin which was saluted by the forts and dykes of the place with ONE THOUSAND GUNS! There was a treat for the inhabitants. There was on board the steamer a splendid receptacle for the coffin: 66 a temple with twelve pillars and a dome to cover it from the wet and moisture, surrounded with velvet hangings and silver fringes. At the head was a gold cross, at the foot a gold lamp other lamps were kept constantly burning within, and vases of burning incense were hung around. An altar, hung with velvet and silver, was at the mizzen-mast of the vessel, and four silver eagles at each corner of the altar." It was a compliment at once to Napoleon and excuse me for

saying so, but so the facts are to Napoleon and to God Almighty.

Three steamers, the "Normandie," the "Véloce," and the "Courrier," formed the expedition from Cherbourg to Havre, at which place they arrived on the evening of the 9th of December, and where the "Véloce" was replaced by the Seine steamer, having in tow one of the state-coasters, which was to fire the salute at the moment when the body was transferred into one of the vessels belonging to the Seine.

The expedition passed Havre the same night, and came to anchor at Val de la Haye on the Seine, three leagues below Rouen.

Here the next morning (10th), it was met by the flotilla of steamboats of the Upper Seine, consisting of the three "Dorades," the three "Etoiles," the "Elbeuvien," the "Parisien," the "Parisienne," and the "Zampa." The Prince de Joinville, and the persons of the expedition, embarked immediately in the flotilla, which arrived the same day at Rouen.

At Rouen salutes were fired, the National Guard on both sides of the river paid military honors to the body; and over the middle of the suspension-bridge a magnificent cenotaph was erected, decorated with flags, fasces, violet hangings, and the imperial arms. Before the cenotaph the expedition stopped, and the absolution was given by the archbishop and the clergy. After a couple of hours' stay, the expedition proceeded to Pont de l'Arche. On the 11th it reached Vernon, on the 12th Mantes, on the 13th Maisons-sur-Seine.

"Everywhere," says the official account from which the above particulars are borrowed, "the authorities, the National Guard, and the people flocked to the passage of the flotilla, desirous to render the honors due to his glory, which is the glory of France. In seeing its hero return, the nation seemed to have found its Palladium again,—the sainted relics of victory."

At length, on the 14th, the coffin was transferred from the "Dorade" steamer on board the imperial vessel arrived from Paris. In the evening, the imperial vessel arrived at Courbevoie, which was the last stage of the journey.

Here it was that M. Guizot went to examine the vessel, and was very nearly flung into the Seine, as report goes, by the patriots assembled there. It is now lying on the river, near the Invalides, amidst the drifting ice, whither the people of Paris are flocking out to see it.

The vessel is of a very elegant antique form, and I can give

you on the Thames no better idea of it than by requesting you to fancy an immense wherry, of which the stern has been cut straight off, and on which a temple on steps has been elevated. At the figure-head is an immense gold eagle, and at the stern is a little terrace, filled with evergreens and a profusion of banners. Upon pedestals along the sides of the vessel are tripods in which incense was burned, and underneath them are garlands of flowers called here "immortals." Four eagles surmount the temple, and a great scroll or garland, held in their beaks, surrounds it. It is hung with velvet and gold; four gold caryatides support the entry of it; and in the midst, upon a large platform hung with velvet, and bearing the imperial arms, stood the coffin. A steamboat, carrying two hundred musicians playing funereal marches and military symphonies, preceded this magnificent vessel to Courbevoie, where a funereal temple was erected, and "a statue of Notre Dame de Grâce, before which the seamen of the Belle Poule' inclined themselves, in order to thank her for having granted them a noble and glorious voyage."

Early on the morning of the 15th December, amidst clouds of incense, and thunder of cannon, and innumerable shouts of people, the coffin was transferred from the barge, and carried by the seamen of the "Belle Poule" to the Imperial Car.

And now having conducted our hero almost to the gates of Paris, I must tell you what preparations were made in the capital to receive him.

Ten days before the arrival of the body, as you walked across the Deputies' Bridge, or over the Esplanade of the Invalides, you saw on the bridge eight, on the esplanade thirtytwo, mysterious boxes erected, wherein a couple of score of sculptors were at work night and day.

In the middle of the Invalid Avenue, there used to stand, on a kind of shabby fountain or pump, a bust of Lafayette, crowned with some dirty wreaths of "immortals," and looking down at the little streamlet which occasionally dribbled below him. The spot of ground was now clear, and Lafayette and the pump had been consigned to some cellar, to make way for the mighty procession that was to pass over the place of their habitation.

Strange coincidence! If I had been Mr. Victor Hugo, my dear, or a poet of any note, I would, in a few hours, have made an impromptu concerning that Lafayette-crowned pump, and compared its lot now to the fortune of its patron some