Well, again, although Napoleon might have slept in peace under "this
audacious trophy," how could he do so and carriages go rattling by all
night, and people with great iron heels to their boots pass clattering
over the stones? Nor indeed could it be expected that a man whose
reputation stretches from the Pyramids to the Kremlin, should find a
column of which the base is only five-and-twenty feet square, a shelter
vast enough for his bones. In a word, then, although the proposal to
bury Napoleon under the column was ingenious, it was found not to suit;
whereupon somebody else proposed the Madelaine.

"It was proposed," says the before-quoted author with his usual
felicity, "to consecrate the Madelaine to his exiled manes"--that is, to
his bones when they were not in exile any longer. "He ought to have, it
was said, a temple entire. His glory fills the world. His bones could
not contain themselves in the coffin of a man--in the tomb of a king!"
In this case what was Mary Magdalen to do? "This proposition, I am
happy to say, was rejected, and a new one--that of the President of the
Council adopted. Napoleon and his braves ought not to quit each other.
Under the immense gilded dome of the Invalides he would find a sanctuary
worthy of himself. A dome imitates the vault of heaven, and that vault
alone" (meaning of course the other vault) "should dominate above his
head. His old mutilated Guard shall watch around him: the last veteran,
as he has shed his blood in his combats, shall breathe his last sigh
near his tomb, and all these tombs shall sleep under the tattered
standards that have been won from all the nations of Europe."

The original words are "sous les lambeaux cribles des drapeaux cueillis
chez toutes les nations;" in English, "under the riddled rags of the
flags that have been culled or plucked" (like roses or buttercups) "in
all the nations." Sweet, innocent flowers of victory! there they are, my
dear, sure enough, and a pretty considerable hortus siccus may any man
examine who chooses to walk to the Invalides. The burial-place being
thus agreed on, the expedition was prepared, and on the 7th July the
"Belle Poule" frigate, in company with "La Favorite" corvette, quitted
Toulon harbor. A couple of steamers, the "Trident" and the "Ocean,"
escorted the ships as far as Gibraltar, and there left them to pursue
their voyage.

The two ships quitted the harbor in the sight of a vast concourse of
people, and in the