s. A bust of Washington was to be crowned, and the flags of
Aboukir were to be received from the hands of General Lannes.

It was one of those combinations which Bonaparte thoroughly
understood--a flash of lightning drawn from the contact of contrasting
facts. He presented the great man of the New World, and a great victory
of the old; young America coupled with the palms of Thebes and Memphis.

On the day fixed for the ceremony, six thousand cavalry were in line
from the Luxembourg to the Invalides. At eight o'clock, Bonaparte
mounted his horse in the main courtyard of the Consular palace; issuing
by the Rue de Tournon he took the line of the quays, accompanied by a
staff of generals, none of whom were over thirty-five years of age.

Lannes headed the procession; behind him were sixty Guides bearing the
sixty captured flags; then came Bonaparte about two horse's-lengths
ahead of his staff.

The minister of war, Berthier, awaited the procession under the dome
of the temple. He leaned against a statue of Mars at rest, and the
ministers and councillors of state were grouped around him. The flags
of Denain and Fontenoy, and those of the first campaign in Italy,
were already suspended from the columns which supported the roof.
Two centenarian "Invalids" who had fought beside Marechal Saxe were
standing, one to the right and one to the left of Berthier, like
caryatides of an ancient world, gazing across the centuries. To the
right, on a raised platform, was the bust of Washington, which was now
to be draped with the flags of Aboukir. On another platform, opposite to
the former, stood Bonaparte's armchair.

On each side of the temple were tiers of seats in which was gathered all
the elegant society of Paris, or rather that portion of it which gave
its adhesion to the order of ideas then to be celebrated.

When the flags appeared, the trumpets blared, their metallic sounds
echoing through the arches of the temple,

Lannes entered first. At a sign from him, the Guides mounted two by
two the steps of the platform and placed the staffs of the flags in the
holders prepared for them. During this time Bonaparte took his place in
the chair,

Then Lannes advanced to the minister of war, and, in that voice that
rang out so clearly on the battlefield, crying "Forward!" he said:

"Citizen minister, these are the flags of the Ottoman army, destroyed
before your eyes at Aboukir. The army of Egypt, after crossing burning
deserts,