's side; the
door on Bertrand's side was guarded by a quartermaster of lancers named
Ferres, to-day a wineshop keeper at Puteaux, a former and very brave
hussar whom the Emperor knew personally and addressed by name. No one
on the road approached the Emperor. Everything that was intended for him
passed through General Bertrand's hands.

Three or four leagues beyond Essonnes the imperial cortege found the
road suddenly barred by General Colbert, at the head of two squadrons
and three regiments echelonned towards Paris.

General Colbert had been the colonel of the regiment of lancers from
which the detachment that escorted the Emperor had been drawn. He
recognised his lancers and his lancers recognised him. They cried:
"General, come over to us!" The General answered: "My children, do your
duty, I am doing mine." Then he turned rein and went off to the right
across country with a few mounted men who followed him. He could not
have resisted; the regiments behind him were shouting: "Long live the
Emperor!"

This meeting only delayed Napoleon a few minutes. He continued on his
way. The Emperor, surrounded only by his one hundred and twenty lancers,
thus reached Paris. He entered by the Barriere de Fontainebleau, took
the large avenue of trees which is on the left, the Boulevard dim
Mont-Parnasse, the other boulevards to the Invalides, then the Pont do
la Concorde, the quay along the river and the gate of the Louvre.

At a quarter past eight o'clock in the evening he was at the Tuileries.

VISIONS OF THE REAL.

I. THE HOVEL.
II. PILLAGE.
III. A DREAM.
IV. THE PANEL WITH THE COAT OF ARMS.
V. THE EASTER DAISY.

I. THE HOVEL.

You want a description of this hovel? I hesitated to inflict it upon
you. But you want it. I' faith, here it is! You will only have yourself
to blame, it is your fault.

"Pshaw!" you say, "I know what it is. A bleared, bandy ruin. Some old
house!"

In the first place it is not an old house, it is very much worse, it is
a new house.

Really, now, an old house! You counted upon an old house and turned up
your nose at it in advance. Ah! yes, old houses; don't you wish you may
get them! A dilapidated, tumble-down cottage! Why, don't you know that a
dilapidated, tumble-down cottage is simply charming, a thing of beauty?
The wall is of beautiful, warm and strong colour, with moth holes,
birds' nests, old nails on which the spider hangs his rose-wi