er pardon one who was not of
themselves?)--the imperial fabric tumbles to the ground. If it teaches
nothing else, my dear, it teaches one a great point of policy--namely,
to stick by one's party.

While these thoughts (and sundry others relative to the horrible cold of
the place, the intense dulness of delay, the stupidity of leaving a warm
bed and a breakfast in order to witness a procession that is much better
performed at a theatre)--while these thoughts were passing in the
mind, the church began to fill apace, and you saw that the hour of the
ceremony was drawing near.

Imprimis, came men with lighted staves, and set fire to at least ten
thousand wax-candles that were hanging in brilliant chandeliers in
various parts of the chapel. Curtains were dropped over the upper
windows as these illuminations were effected, and the church was left
only to the funereal light of the spermaceti. To the right was the dome,
round the cavity of which sparkling lamps were set, that designed the
shape of it brilliantly against the darkness. In the midst, and where
the altar used to stand, rose the catafalque. And why not? Who is
God here but Napoleon? and in him the sceptics have already ceased to
believe; but the people does still somewhat. He and Louis XIV. divide
the worship of the place between them.

As for the catafalque, the best that I can say for it is that it
is really a noble and imposing-looking edifice, with tall pillars
supporting a grand dome, with innumerable escutcheons, standards, and
allusions military and funereal. A great eagle of course tops the whole:
tripods burning spirits of wine stand round this kind of dead man's
throne, and as we saw it (by peering over the heads of our neighbors in
the front rank), it looked, in the midst of the black concave, and under
the effect of half a thousand flashing cross-lights, properly grand and
tall. The effect of the whole chapel, however (to speak the jargon of
the painting-room), was spoiled by being CUT UP: there were too many
objects for the eye to rest upon: the ten thousand wax-candles, for
instance, in their numberless twinkling chandeliers, the raw tranchant
colors of the new banners, wreaths, bees, N's, and other emblems dotting
the place all over, and incessantly puzzling, or rather BOTHERING the
beholder.

High overhead, in a sort of mist, with the glare of their original
colors worn down by dust and time, hung long rows of dim ghostly-looking
standards, capt