17, when the passage of the
fleet was to be made through the canal, there were persons at Port
Said who doubted if it would get through. The ships-of-war had been
directed to enter the canal first, and there was to be between
each ship an interval of a quarter of an hour. They were ordered to
steam at the rate of five miles an hour. "L'Aigle" entered first.
"La Pelouse," another French ship, had the greatest draught of
water; namely, eighteen or nineteen feet.

The scenery from the Suez Canal was not interesting. Lakes, then
undrained, stretched upon either side; the banks of the canal being
the only land visible. But as evening fell, and the sun sank, a
rich purple light, with its warm tones, overspread everything,
until the moon rose, touching the waters with her silvery sheen.
Before this, however, the foremost ships in the procession had
safely reached Ismailia. There the khedive had erected a new palace
in which to review his guests. They numbered about six thousand,
and the behavior of many of them did little credit to civilization.

The khedive had arranged an exhibition of Arab horsemanship and
of throwing the _Jereed_; but the sand was so deep that the horses
could not show themselves to advantage. The empress, wearing a
large leghorn hat and yellow veil, rode on a camel; and when an
Italian in the crowd shouted to her roughly, "Lean back, or you
will fall off, heels over head," the graceful dignity with which she
smiled, and accepted the advice, won the hearts of all beholders.

That night a great ball was given by the khedive in his new palace.
"It was impossible," says an English gentleman, "to overrate the
gracious influence of the empress's presence. The occasion, great
as it was, would have lost its romance if she had not been there.
She it was who raised the spirit of chivalry, subdued the spirit
of strife, enmity, and intrigue among rival men, and over commerce,
science, and avarice spread the gauzy hues of poetry."

Alas! poor empress. Ten months later, she was hurrying as a fugitive
on board an English yacht on her way into exile, having passed
through anxieties and griefs that had streaked her hair with gray.
Even in the midst of her personal triumphs in the East, there were
clouds on the horizon of her life which she could see darkening
and increasing. A few days before the fetes of the opening of the
canal, she writes to her husband, who, though unfit for exertion,
had gone into Paris on some