follow a busy street as far as the bridge of Jena, and on
the opposite bank of the Seine rises the Eiffel Tower, dominating Paris
with its immense pillar 1000 feet high. The Eiffel Tower is the highest
structure ever reared by human hands, twice as high as the cathedral of
Cologne and the tallest of the Egyptian pyramids. At the first platform
we are more than 330 feet above the vast city, but the hills outside
Paris close in the horizon. When the cage rises up to the third platform
we are at a height of 864 feet above the ground, and see below us the
Seine with its many bridges and the city with its innumerable streets
and its 140 squares. A staircase leads up to the highest balcony, and at
the very top a beacon is lighted at night visible 50 miles away. From
the parapet we hardly dare allow our eyes to look down the perpendicular
tower to the four sloping iron piers at its base, especially when it
blows hard and the whole tower perceptibly swings. There is no need to
go up in a balloon to obtain a bird's-eye view of Paris; from the top of
the Eiffel Tower we have the town spread out before us like a map.

NAPOLEON'S TOMB

When we have safely descended from the giddy height, we make our way
across the Champ de Mars to the Hotel des Invalides. Formerly several
thousand pensioners from the great French armies found a refuge in this
huge building, but now it is used as a museum for military historic
relics.

[Illustration: PLATE XXV. NAPOLEON'S TOMB.

Hotel des Invalides, Paris.]

We pass in under the glittering gilded dome, visible all over the city,
and find ourselves in a round hall, the centre of which is occupied by a
crypt, likewise round and several feet deep and open above. On the floor
in mosaic letters are glorious names, Rivoli, Pyramids, Marengo,
Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, and Moscow. Twelve marble statues,
representing as many victories, and sixty captured colours keep guard
round the great sarcophagus of red porphyry from Finland which contains
the remains of Napoleon (Plate XXV.).

No one speaks in here. The deepest silence surrounds the ashes of the
man who in his lifetime filled the world with the roar of his cannon and
the thunder of his legions, and who within the space of a few years
completely changed the map of Europe. Pale and subdued, the light falls
over the crypt where the red porphyry speaks of irresistible power, and
the white goddesses of victory are illumined as it were wit