knew what was what, and kept their opinions to themselves, coming
with a tolerably good grace and flinging a few handfuls of incense upon
the altar of the popular idol.

In the succeeding debates, then, various opinions were given with
regard to the place to be selected for the Emperor's sepulture. "Some
demanded," says an eloquent anonymous Captain in the Navy who has
written an "Itinerary from Toulon to St. Helena," "that the coffin
should be deposited under the bronze taken from the enemy by the French
army--under the Column of the Place Vendome. The idea was a fine one.
This is the most glorious monument that was ever raised in a conqueror's
honor. This column has been melted out of foreign cannon. These same
cannons have furrowed the bosoms of our braves with noble cicatrices;
and this metal--conquered by the soldier first, by the artist
afterwards--has allowed to be imprinted on its front its own defeat and
our glory. Napoleon might sleep in peace under this audacious trophy.
But, would his ashes find a shelter sufficiently vast beneath this
pedestal? And his puissant statue dominating Paris, beams with
sufficient grandeur on this place: whereas the wheels of carriages and
the feet of passengers would profane the funereal sanctity of the spot
in trampling on the soil so near his head."

You must not take this description, dearest Amelia, "at the foot of
the letter," as the French phrase it, but you will here have a masterly
exposition of the arguments for and against the burial of the Emperor
under the Column of the Place Vendome. The idea was a fine one, granted;
but, like all other ideas, it was open to objections. You must not
fancy that the cannon, or rather the cannon-balls, were in the habit
of furrowing the bosoms of French braves, or any other braves, with
cicatrices: on the contrary, it is a known fact that cannon-balls
make wounds, and not cicatrices (which, my dear, are wounds partially
healed); nay, that a man generally dies after receiving one such
projectile on his chest, much more after having his bosom furrowed by
a score of them. No, my love; no bosom, however heroic, can stand such
applications, and the author only means that the French soldiers faced
the cannon and took them. Nor, my love, must you suppose that the column
was melted: it was the cannon was melted, not the column; but such
phrases are often used by orators when they wish to give a particular
force and emphasis to their opinions.