t shook the timber-work and
echoed and re-echoed through the church. It was succeeded by a second
roar, then a third, at regular intervals. I recognised the thunder of
the cannon, and remembered the gun I had seen in the square.

I turned to my guide:

"What is that noise?"

"The telegraph has been at work and the cannon has been fired."

"What does it mean?" I continued.

"It means," said the beadle, "that a grandson has just been born to
Louis Philippe."

The cannon announced the birth of the Count de Paris.

These are my recollections of Rheims.

RECOUNTED BY EYE-WITNESSES

I. THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.
II. THE ARRIVAL OF NAPOLEON I IN PARIS IN 1815.

I. THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.

There were certain characteristic details connected with the execution
of Louis XVI. that are not recorded in history. They were recounted to
me by an eye-witness* and are here published for the first time.

* This eye witness was one Leboucher, who arrived in Paris
from Bourges in December, 1792, and was present at the
execution of Louis XVI. In 1840 he recounted to Victor Hugo
most of these details which, as can easily be imagined, had
impressed themselves deeply upon his mind.

The scaffold was not, as is generally believed, erected in the very
centre of the Place, on the spot where the obelisk now stands, but on a
spot which the decree of the Provisional Executive Council designates in
these precise terms: "between the pied d'estal and the Champs-Elysees."

What was this pedestal? Present generations who have seen so many things
happen, so many statues crumble and so many pedestals overthrown do
not quite know what meaning to give to this very vague designation,
and would be embarrassed to tell for what monument the mysterious stone
which the Executive Council of the Revolution laconically calls the
"pied d'estal" served as a base. This stone had borne the statue of
Louis XV.

Let it be noted _en passant_ that this strange Place which had been
called successively the Place Louis XV., Place de la Revolution, Place
de la Concorde, Place Louis XVI., Place du Garde-Meuble and Place des
Champs-Elysees, and which could not retain any name, could not keep any
monument either. It has had the statue of Louis XV., which disappeared;
an expiatory fountain which was to have laved the bloody centre of the
Place was projected, but not even the first stone was laid; a rough
mo