Paris and France.

On the 1st of August, 1834, a statue of the emperor was placed in the
court-yard of the Royal Hotel des Invalides, accompanied by as
imposing civil and religious ceremonies as France had ever witnessed.

In the year 1806, Napoleon I. had laid the foundations of the Arc de
l'Etoile, at the entrance of the most superb avenue in the world. The
people now demanded the completion of the monument. Preparations were
made for a magnificent fete on the 29th of July, 1836, when the
completed arc was to be unveiled. But Louis Philippe had become so
excessively unpopular, he was so incessantly pursued by assassins,
that it was not deemed safe for him to appear at the ceremony. The
magnificent monument was unveiled without any ceremony--the
_Moniteur_ proclaiming to Europe the humiliating declaration that the
king could no longer with safety appear in the streets of Paris. "The
soil," writes a French annalist, "was so sown with assassins that
there was no safety for the monarch but within the walls of his
palace."[AP]

[Footnote AP: Alison, vol. iii., p. 206.]

All over the kingdom insurrections were constantly bursting out, and
there were bloody conflicts in Lyons, Marseilles, and other places.
And now the demand became irresistible for the transfer of the
remains of Napoleon to Paris. Such a scene of national homage as this
great occasion manifested the world never witnessed before. In 1840,
the eyes of the world were fixed upon this grand funereal pageant.
The honored remains were transferred from the lonely grave at St.
Helena, placed beneath the dome of the Invalides, and over those
remains a nation's gratitude has reared a monument which attracts the
admiration of the world.

[Illustration: ST. HELENA.]

But these reluctant yieldings to popular sentiment did not add to the
popularity of Louis Philippe. He was shot at so frequently that he
received the sobriquet of the _Target King_! A volume might be filled
with the recital of the foul attempts to assassinate him. His days
must have passed in constant wretchedness. He was assailed in low
blackguardism in the journals: he was assailed with envenomed
eloquence, by such men as Lamartine, at the banquets; and his path
was dogged, with dagger and pistol, by such brutal wretches as
Fieschi, Boirier Meunier, Alibaud, and many others.

Louis Philippe, in the relations of private life, was one of the best
of men. His character had been formed in the school