and so saw the Emperor Napoleon III for
the first time in my life. The mind is, after all, a smaller thing
than those who deny the existence of that which is beyond their
comprehension would have us believe. At that moment I forgot to think
of all that lay behind those dull, extinguished eyes. I forgot that
this was a maker of history, and one who will be placed by
chroniclers, writing in the calm of the twentieth century, only second
to his greater uncle among remarkable Frenchmen, and merely wondered
whether Napoleon III perceived the somewhat obtrusive emotion of my
neighbour in the court uniform.

But a keener observer than myself could scarce have discerned the
information on the still, pale features of the Emperor, who, indeed,
in his implacability always reminded me more of my own countrymen than
of the French. The service was proceeding with that cunning rise and
fall of voice and music which, I take it, has won not a few emotional
souls back to the Mother Church. Suddenly John Turner chuckled in a
way that fat people have.

"Laughing at your d--d piano-case," he explained.

I had told him shortly before how I had boarded the Calais boat at
Dover in the form and semblance of a piano, snugly housed in one of
Messrs. Erard's cases, while my servant engaged in pleasant converse
on the quay the bailiff who had been set to watch for me: this, while
they were actually slinging me on board. The picture of the surprise
of my fellow-passengers when Loomer gravely unscrewed me and I emerged
from my travelling-carriage in mid-channel had pleased John Turner
vastly. Indeed, he told the story to the end of his days, and even
brought that end within hail at times by an over-indulgence in
apoplectic mirth. He chuckled at it now in the midst of this solemn
service. But I, more easily moved perhaps by outward show and pomp,
could only think of our surroundings. The excitement of giving my
creditors the slip was a thing of the past; for those were rapid days,
and I no laggard, as many took care to tell me, on the heel of the
flying moment.

The ceremony in which we were taking part was indeed strange enough to
rivet the attention of any who witnessed it--strange, I take it, as
any historical scene of a century that saw the rise and fall of
Napoleon I. Strange beyond belief, that this dynasty should arise from
ashes as cold as those that Europe heaped on St. Helena's dead, to
celebrate the birth of its founder!

Who would