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slightly wadded, to be sure, but so made as not to cover the arms below the elbows.

A great pang was in our minds that day. After sixty-seven years I remember it keenly. Louis Napoleon had made, during the previous summer, his attempt at Boulogne. With him at Ham was Count Montholon, Napoleon's faithful friend and companion at St. Helena. He had been inveigled into joining Prince Louis's expedition, not knowing its purpose. He now implored the Government to allow him to be present at the return of his great master, offering to appear as a prisoner if necessary.' His request was denied. I remember perfectly the anguish we felt as the other friends and generals of the Emperor passed and he was not among them. Nobody thought or cared for the 'neveu de mon oncle,' but that Montholon was not there was a grief.

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The Emperor's body, when landed from the barge at Courbevoie, was placed upon the imperial car, or catafalque. The place intended for it, the sarcophagus, was at the apex of the car, over thirty feet from the ground. This sarcophagus was supported by twelve angelic figures, life size. They stood on the centre of the body of the catafalque, which, in its turn, was guarded by other life-sized figures, all of them symbolical. The whole construction, wheels and all, was of burnished gold. Its sides were draped with violet velvet, while from the upper sarcophagus floated an exquisite transparent veil of violet gauze studded with golden bees. The car was drawn by sixteen horses, harnessed four abreast, and covered entirely, so that their colour could not be seen, by trappings of cloth of gold. Stately white and violet plumes were on their heads, and each horse was led by a groom in the imperial green livery.

The intention had been to place the body in the upper receptacle. But, on attempting to do this, the structure was found to be too weak; the Emperor's coffin was therefore laid on the main body of the catafalque, concealed by the velvet draperies. This, however, was not known at the time; and as the procession passed we all thought that he lay in the upper sarcophagus.

The Champs Elysées, golden-sanded as I have said, was guarded on its left side, from the Place de la Concorde to the Arch, by the National Guard. When the procession, coming from Neuilly, reached the arch-the Arch of his Glory-the catafalque was halted beneath it for a few moments. During those moments the people, in their blind enthusiasm, really believed, many of them,

that Napoleon would rise from the dead when brought beneath the Arc de Triomphe. I recollect how eager we were to go up and see the car pause under the Arch. But our father would not take us, for the crowd was terrific; and, moreover, there was a dumb alarm felt that some formidable Bonapartist uprising might, then and there, take place. Certain it is that the cannon stationed round the Arch, under the guise of ' trophies,' were so placed as to rake the avenues in case of an outbreak.

At last at last the procession was seen coming down the Champs Elysées past our windows. First came innumerable squadrons of all regiments, in all uniforms, preceded by a body of trumpeters. I cannot remember anything about them, except their splendid effect. Neither can I remember any sounds. Music there must have been, shouts there may have been, but I remember nothing of them. We were breathless to see the real thing. It came first in the shape of an old white horse, said to be the son of Marengo who carried his master at Wagram. At any rate, the saddle, bridle and housings were those worn by Marengo on that occasion, and preserved in the Hôtel Cluny.

Then, after its guard of honour, came the imperial car-came Napoleon to the banks of the Seine. On either side were the sailors of the Belle Poule, marching two and two at the edge of the avenue; thus leaving a broad golden space, along which the car moved lightly, gracefully, yet grandly.

I cannot recall any sounds as the Emperor passed us. Men stood with bared heads in the biting wind; silent, it seemed to me, till their pent-up emotion broke forth in a sort of sob as the remnants of the Grand Army followed their great leader. Ah, what a sight that was !—those old, maimed men, in faded uniforms of every grade and colour; sappers and miners, grenadiers, dragoons, lancers, and, above all, the survivors of the Old Guard. Poor, broken heroes! of what were they thinking? Did the piercing cold remind them of the Russian retreat? Or were their thoughts on glory only? on the 'little corporal' who led the terrible blast that carried their laurels the wide world through' to victories amid the images of which they were then marching? Thirty years had elapsed since they won them. Could they have looked forward thirty years and seen the degradation to which the glory of war and the Napoleonic tradition were to bring France in the Terrible Year,' the great delusion as to what a nation's true glory is must have dropped from their aged minds.

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Well, the great event was over. We did not see the reception at the Invalides, the two sights being incompatible. But we had seen the real thing-the coming of Napoleon through the masses of his people to the place where he would be. The services in the church were somewhat perfunctory. The king advanced to meet the coffin. The Prince de Joinville said, 'Sire, I present to you the body of Napoleon.' The king replied, 'I receive it in the name of France.' Then, turning to General Bertrand, he said, 'General, place the glorious sword of the Emperor upon his coffin.' Mass was then said, and Mozart's Requiem' sung, the solo parts being taken by Lablache, Rubini, Tamburini, Duprèz, Mario, Grisi, Persiani, Cinti-Damoreau, Pauline Garcia and others.

Thackeray has given an account of this day, but the tone of it is not worthy of either himself or the event, and he makes one signal mistake. He speaks of danger to the English on this occasion. I am certain there was no such danger and no fear of it. There was fear, as I have said, of a Bonapartist uprising around the Arch, byt none of an attack on the English. Our father was a man of very marked personality, a British officer who would have been a target for such an attack had any been intended. Yet, so far from expecting it, we, a family of young girls and children, were allowed to roam the avenues during that preparatory week with no attendant but our maid.

Thackeray also tells of the 'mean and tawdry character of the preparations,' producing vain heaps of tinsel, paint and plaster.' True, in a paltry sense. Five miles of avenue and the spaces around the Invalides and the Chamber of Deputies were to be decorated for the event of one day. Some parts of that great distance were adorned with real trophies, real statues. For instance, in the Court of Honour leading to the Invalides were placed historical portrait-statues of the greatest men of France, brought from all the national galleries of the kingdom. The statues on the Champs Elysées, the columns, the tripods were, it is true, of plaster, and their pedestals of painted canvas. Could it have been otherwise? They were there to honour one event-the Coming of Napoleon. Permanency was impossible, and also out of keeping. The only fitting permanency is the tomb that may be seen to-day in the crypt of the Invalides.

It is true that a few absurdities crept in. For instance, the wings of the Victories were added after the statues were set up— probably for safety in handling. Now wings, like boots and shoes,

are rights and lefts, and in the hurry of preparation Eylau received a couple of right wings and some sister Victory a couple of lefts. Also, when Marshal Ney's statue was about to be erected it was found to be life-size, while those of the other marshals among whom he was to stand were colossal. It was therefore cut through the middle, supports were inserted, and the surgical operation was adroitly concealed by a drapery of flags.

On further reflection, I am not sure whether he was life-sized or colossal. At any rate, the Bravest of the Brave did not match with his co-heroes, and his stomach was either elongated or dispensed with altogether. But what of that? it was something to provoke a merry laugh, not a sneer.

On the following day we went to the Invalides to see Napoleon lying where he had prayed to lie. But it was all unsatisfactory. The crowd was terrible; women were fainting; the church was dark with black and purple hangings; the only light came from green and lurid flames belching from tripods; the air was suffocating, and the Emperor's coffin was almost invisible within a sort of gilded cage. Nothing rewarded us but the idea-no, the realitythat Napoleon was there.

KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY.

97

THE ELECTRIC THEORY OF MATTER.

I READ the other day in one of our leading weekly reviews an eloquent article which informed me that the most striking discovery of modern times has been the 'transmutation of the elements,' and that while the seventy or eighty known elements have long been suspected by philosophers to be compounded from one and the same kind of matter, there has now been observed the actual transformation of uranium into radium, of radium into helium and perhaps also into lead. Now, there is in these statements so much mixing up of things which differ,' of facts and hypotheses still very much upon their trial, that the perusal of this article has suggested to me that those who are interested in the progress of physics and chemistry might welcome, at this moment, a brief account of that latest phase of the ever recurring idea that every bit of matter in every form may consist, really, of the same ultimate material. This idea also has recently suggested that the chemical atoms, of which all matter consists, are made up solely of systems of electric charges.

As the work of this theory is not yet done, as the fate of this latest reading of the riddle of the mystery of matter still lies on the lap of the gods, it may seem to some of my readers that the subject is not very well suited for the pages of the CORNHILL. I believe, however, that those who think this are wrong, for if we wish cultivated men and women to take a living interest in the progress of science, and to be able, as they very well might be, to avoid falling into such mistakes as those to be found in the article referred to above, we must not ask them always to be content with the realised knowledge of the text-book and the museum, though these are very good things in their places, but must go with them also, now and then, into the workshop and there show them science in the making. And this is what I propose to do on the present occasion.

Before we enter the theory shop and endeavour to follow the growth of the electric theory of matter' I must ask those who go there with me first to delay for a moment and recall one or two matters of considerable importance. In the first place we must remember that a scientific theory has to perform two distinct

VOL. XXV.-NO. 145, N.S.

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