the Hotel des Invalides just as they were preparing the
sarcophagus for the reception of the remains of Napoleon. We witnessed
the wild excitement of that enthusiastic people, and listened with deep
interest to the old soldiers' praises of their great general. The ladies
of our party chatted freely with them. They all had interesting
anecdotes to relate of their chief. They said he seldom slept over four
hours, was an abstemious eater, and rarely changed a servant, as he
hated a strange face about him. He was very fond of a game of chess, and
snuffed continuously; talked but little, was a light sleeper,--the
stirring of a mouse would awaken him,--and always on the watch-tower.
They said that, in his great campaigns, he seemed to be omnipresent. A
sentinel asleep at his post would sometimes waken to find Napoleon on
duty in his place.

The ship that brought back Napoleon's remains was the _Belle Poule_
(the beautiful hen!), which landed at Cherbourg, November 30, 1840. The
body was conveyed to the Church of the Invalides, which adjoins the
tomb. The Prince de Joinville brought the body from Saint Helena, and
Louis Philippe received it.

At that time each soldier had a little patch of land to decorate as he
pleased, in which many scenes from their great battles were illustrated.
One represented Napoleon crossing the Alps. There were the cannon, the
soldiers, Napoleon on horseback, all toiling up the steep ascent,
perfect in miniature. In another was Napoleon, flag in hand, leading the
charge across the bridge of Lodi. In still another was Napoleon in
Egypt, before the Pyramids, seated, impassive, on his horse, gazing at
the Sphinx, as if about to utter his immortal words to his soldiers:
"Here, forty centuries look down upon us." These object lessons of the
past are all gone now and the land used for more prosaic purposes.

I little thought, as I witnessed that great event in France in 1840,
that fifty-seven years later I should witness a similar pageant in the
American Republic, when our nation paid its last tributes to General
Grant. There are many points of similarity in these great events. As men
they were alike aggressive and self-reliant. In Napoleon's will he
expressed the wish that his last resting place might be in the land and
among the people he loved so well. His desire is fulfilled. He rests in
the chief city of the French republic, whose shores are washed by the
waters of the Seine. General Grant expresse