afternoon at Saint-Cloud the weather was beautiful, while the streets of
Paris were flooded with a heavy shower lasting some time, and on Monday
there was rain at Saint-Cloud, while the weather was magnificent in
Paris, as if the fates had decreed that nothing should lessen the
splendor of the cortege, or the brilliancy of the wonderful illuminations
of that evening. "The star of the Emperor," said some one in the
language of that period, "has borne him twice over equinoctial winds."

On Monday evening the city of Paris presented a scene that might have
been taken from the realms of enchantment: the illuminations were the
most brilliant I have ever witnessed, forming a succession of magic
panorama in which houses, hotels, palaces, and churches, shone with
dazzling splendor, the glittering towers of the churches appeared like
stars and comets suspended in the air. The hotels of the grand
dignitaries of the empire, the ministers, the ambassadors of Austria and
Russia, and the Duke d'Abrantes, rivaled each other in taste and beauty.
The Place Louis XV. was like a scene from fairyland; from the midst of
this Place, surrounded with orange-trees on fire, the eye was attracted
in succession by the magnificent decorations of the Champs-Elysees, the
Garde Meuble, the Temple of Glory, the Tuileries, and the Corps
Legislatif. The palace of the latter represented the Temple of Hymen,
the transparencies on the front representing Peace uniting the august
spouses. Beside them stood two figures bearing shields, on which were
represented the arms of the two empires; and behind this group came
magistrates, warriors, and the people presenting crowns. At the two
extremities of the transparencies were represented the Seine and the
Danube, surrounded by children-image of fecundity. The twelve columns of
the peristyle and the staircase were illuminated; and the columns were
united by garlands of colored lights, the statues on the peristyle and
the steps also bearing lights. The bridge Louis XV., by which this
Temple of Hymen was reached, formed in itself an avenue, whose double
rows of lamps, and obelisks and more than a hundred columns, each
surmounted by a star and connected by spiral festoons of colored lights,
produced an effect so brilliant that it was almost unendurable to the
naked eye. The cupola of the dome of Saint Genevieve was also
magnificently lighted, and each side outlined by a double row of lamps.
At each corner were eagles,