me of those
artists carried it so far that it ceased to be gratitude and became
worship. If there is a plausible excuse for the worship of men, then by
all means let us forgive Rubens and his brethren.

But I will drop the subject, lest I say something about the old masters
that might as well be left unsaid.

Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogne, that limitless park, with its
forests, its lakes, its cascades, and its broad avenues. There were
thousands upon thousands of vehicles abroad, and the scene was full of
life and gaiety. There were very common hacks, with father and mother
and all the children in them; conspicuous little open carriages with
celebrated ladies of questionable reputation in them; there were Dukes
and Duchesses abroad, with gorgeous footmen perched behind, and equally
gorgeous outriders perched on each of the six horses; there were blue and
silver, and green and gold, and pink and black, and all sorts and
descriptions of stunning and startling liveries out, and I almost yearned
to be a flunkey myself, for the sake of the fine clothes.

But presently the Emperor came along and he outshone them all. He was
preceded by a bodyguard of gentlemen on horseback in showy uniforms, his
carriage-horses (there appeared to be somewhere in the remote
neighborhood of a thousand of them,) were bestridden by gallant-looking
fellows, also in stylish uniforms, and after the carriage followed
another detachment of bodyguards. Everybody got out of the way;
everybody bowed to the Emperor and his friend the Sultan; and they went
by on a swinging trot and disappeared.

I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I can not do it. It is simply
a beautiful, cultivated, endless, wonderful wilderness. It is an
enchanting place. It is in Paris now, one may say, but a crumbling old
cross in one portion of it reminds one that it was not always so. The
cross marks the spot where a celebrated troubadour was waylaid and
murdered in the fourteenth century. It was in this park that that fellow
with an unpronounceable name made the attempt upon the Russian Czar's
life last spring with a pistol. The bullet struck a tree. Ferguson
showed us the place. Now in America that interesting tree would be
chopped down or forgotten within the next five years, but it will be
treasured here. The guides will point it out to visitors for the next
eight hundred years, and when it decays and falls down they will put up
another ther