l, which was covered with mortar, and which
formed one side of the place. I turned in to the spot and inquired what
was the matter. A man replied,--"Marshal Ney has been shot here, and his
body has just been removed." I looked at the soldier, but he was gravely
going through his monotonous duty, and I knew that military rule forbade
my addressing him. I looked down; the ground was wet with blood. I
turned to the wall, and seeing it marked by balls, I attempted, with my
knife, to dig out a memorial of that day's sad work, but the soldier
motioned me away. I afterwards revisited the place, but the wall had
been plastered over, and no indications remained where the death-shot
had penetrated.

The sensation produced by this event was profound and permanent. Many
a heart, inclined towards the Bourbons, was alienated by it forever.
Families which had rejoiced at the Restoration now cursed it in
their bitterness, and from that day dated a hostility which knew no
reconciliation. The army and the youth of France demanded, why a
soldier, whose whole life had been passed in her service, should be
sacrificed to appease a race that was a stranger to the country, and
for which it had no sympathy. A gloom spread like a funeral pall over
society, and even those who had blamed the Marshal for joining the
Emperor were now among his warmest defenders. The print-shops were
thronged with purchasers eager to possess his portrait and to hang it
in their homes, with a reverence like that attaching to the image of a
martyred saint. Had he died at Waterloo, as he led on the Imperial Guard
to their last charge, when five horses were shot under him, and his
uniform, riddled by balls, hung about him in tatters, he would not have
had such an apotheosis as was now given him, with one simultaneous
movement, by all classes of his countrymen.

The inveterate intention of the reigning family was to obliterate every
mark that bore the impress of Napoleon. Wherever the initial of his name
had been inserted on the public edifices, it was carefully erased; his
statues were broken or removed; prints of him could not be exposed for
sale; and it appeared to be their fixed determination to drive him
from men's memories. But he had left mementos which jealousy could not
conceal nor petty malice destroy. His Code was still the law of the
land; the monuments of his genius were thickly scattered wherever his
dominion had extended; his mighty name was on every tongu