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so amazingly old, so amazingly new, having its roots, one must suppose, in the first experiences of the race, and for flower-the Uganda Railway and that desert sprig of civilisation, Nairobi, with its six thousand inhabitants, its telegraph wires, and its 'well laid out racecourse' ? Travellers in British East Africa may or may not view with interest the Tsavo Bridge, whose building was accomplished in the face of difficulties so extraordinary, but we must owe it at least a debt of gratitude as having occasioned a book of singular interest. Whether its perusal will in all respects increase the love and reverence it is said we should feel for Nature and all her wild children, will probably depend on the private use to which we put that hard-exercised word. Nature and human nature 'neat' are not unlikely to prove upsetting to some of our comfortable home-grown theories. We may prefer-it is often more convenient-to ignore them in that form. To pursue the dreams we like to dream upon English lawns when the weather is fine, it is fortunately not necessary to observe Nature very closely. Is that a patch of feathers in the distance and a sated feline creature slinking out of sight? Very likely. We do not look that way. Our business is to greet the dawn in unison with singing birdsabove all, to feel ourselves innocent, kind, and gentle, being one with Nature.

ELEANOR CECIL.

89

AT CHRISTIE'S.

YOUNG lady, with a linnet in a cage';

Where was thy home, and what thy little name,
Ere yet such strangers both to thee became
As these, who now-thy venal suitors—rage,
And round thee rude, ignoble conflict wage

For ashes pale-long fled the blushing flame That to thy cheek, as Reynolds touched it, came, Whenas thy charms did every Muse engage?

Thy world admitted no such insolent crowd

As now may stare into thy maiden eyes, May laud thee to thy very face aloud,

Make of thy smile in this mean mart the prize ; Yet gain not thee-far folded in thy shroud

All else the diamond or the dollar buys.

C. J. D.

NAPOLEON'S RETURN FROM ST. HELENA.1

AN EYE-WITNESS'S ACCOUNT OF A MEMORABLE EVENT.

ONE of the mysteries of history is the motive that led Louis Philippe to bring the body of the Great Emperor back to France. It was a political blunder, soon made manifest so far as his own reign and dynasty were concerned. Warning after warning had reached him. Not a year of the July monarchy had passed before Prince Louis Bonaparte, lately affiliated with the Carbonari, was secretly rousing the Napoleonic fervour of the south of France; until, in May 1831, he brought the veterans of the Grand Army before the Emperor's column in the Place Vendôme, to proclaim the son of their great general as Napoleon II. In 1836 (the Duc de Reichstadt being dead) Louis Bonaparte, now styling himself Louis Napoleon, made the attempt on his own behalf at Strasburg, where his strength with the army was much greater than the authorities allowed it to appear. And at Boulogne, in 1840, his third attempt, made ridiculous by a tame eagle, was in reality a gathering of the officers and men of the Old Army, prepared to rouse the north of France-a project which was nipped in the bud solely by Prince Louis's incurable lack of punctuality.

Yet these very veterans were summoned by Louis Philippe to receive the body of their hero on its arrival in Paris!

Perhaps it was the old man's confidence in himself as the 'citizen-king,' the chosen King of the French'; a vanity that may have been-probably was-worked upon by his then Prime Minister, M. Thiers, for ends of his own. Thiers, a true patriot at times, was always, first and last, for self; and he doubtless felt that Napoleon's return would place a crown upon his history of 'The Consulate and the Empire.' The old politician may also have looked for some personal glory in the return. If so, he was disappointed. The Eastern Question (that crucial question raised by the crusades and left unsettled to this day) cropped up; war was imminent between France and England, and M. Thiers was forced, before the arrival of Napoleon's body, to resign his position to Soult and Guizot.

Copyright, 1908, in the United States of America.

Be this as it may, it is certain that the dramatic return of the Emperor, keeping alive the Napoleonic tradition in the hearts of the people, was one of the causes that led to the Second Empire, which, by a strange turn of fate, was destined to destroy, for ever and aye, the power of that tradition over the minds of French

men.

On July 7, 1840, the frigate Belle Poule, under command of Louis Philippe's third son, the Prince de Joinville, sailed from Toulon for St. Helena, having on board, in addition to the government officials, Baron Las Casas, Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud, the Abbé Coquereau, and four of Napoleon's former servants.

On November 30 the Prince de Joinville announced the return of the frigate to Cherbourg, bearing its precious freight. The coffin had been opened, for two minutes, at St. Helena, and the Emperor was found to look exactly as Las Casas and Bertrand remembered that he looked when laid within it. The face was perfect; the well-known green uniform retained its colour, the cross of the Legion of Honour its brilliancy. Thus it was indeed the body of Napoleon himself, and not his mere remains,' that came back, according to the prayer of his last will and testament, to the banks of the Seine.

At Cherbourg the body was transferred, with its attendant company and the crew of the Belle Poule, to a flotilla that bore it to Havre, at the mouth of the Seine; where again it was transferred, with its guard of honour, to the deck of a barge, on which, visible to all eyes, it was floated up the river. This was, perhaps, the most remarkable period of the great return-the most purely emotional. From far and near the population of the north of France, men, women and children, flocked to the banks of the Seine, where they knelt, weeping and praying, as their Emperor passed. The survivors of the Grand Army brought their old muskets to fire, under no word of command, their individual salutes. It was indeed a triumph-greater than Rome could show ; without pomp, without victory, the untutored homage of a population.

The Belle Poule had reached Cherbourg before she was due; the preparations for the reception in Paris were far from completed; five miles of quay and avenue were still to be decorated. Armies of workmen, soldiers, labourers, artisans, toiled night and day under the general orders of the Director of the Beaux-Arts.

We were living in Paris at the time. After passing the summer in Switzerland, intending to spend the winter in Italy, our humble

plans were interfered with by that upsetting Eastern Question. Our father, being a British naval officer, could not obtain a furlough beyond a certain distance from the English coast. This loss proved to be our gain on this occasion. We spent that preparatory week in roaming over the whole line of march, peeping, when we could, under the canvas screens and into the wooden huts where artists and artisans were putting the last touches to their work.

At each side of

The evening before the great day we walked the whole length of the Champs Elysées, from the Place de la Concorde to the Arch, to see the general effect of the decorations, which were then uncovered. Hundreds of carts and workmen were sanding the avenue, which gave the whole roadway a golden hue. Of course neither vehicles nor pedestrians were allowed upon it. the avenue and close to the leafless trees were colossal statues of Napoleon's victories, raised high on pedestals bearing the name of each victory, garlanded with laurel and immortelles. Alternating with the statues were triumphal columns, surmounted by golden eagles and draped with flags and other trophies. Between each statue and column were huge vases, of wide, open shape, also on pedestals, in which incense was to burn the next day as the procession passed. On the summit of the Arch of Triumph stood the Emperor, bearing his sceptre, and surrounded by allegorical figures. From this vantage ground the great captain looked down upon the flags of all his armies, floating beneath him in the breeze.

The next day the cold was intense, the north wind piercing, but the sun was bright. Crowds, the like of which were never seen (they were said to number over 700,000 persons), filled the sides of the avenue by daybreak; roofs were invisible; every tree was laden with men and gamins. We had great difficulty in reaching the house from the windows of which we were to view the procession. This house was on the right of the Champs Elysées (going toward the Arch) and a little above the Rond Point. It was nearly opposite to a small house in which lived the Duc de Morny, then an ardent Orleanist, though exactly eleven years later (December 1851) he inspired and engineered the Coup d'Etat !

The cold, as I have mentioned, was bitter; many hundred persons were said to have died from its effects. A Portuguese gentleman in the room with us fell a victim to it. Yet it could not have been as severe as the cold of America, for I recollect my girlish satisfaction in a new winter garment, a thin silk mantilla,

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