suppose, much as
usual,--an excited throng of young and jockey-looking men, with a few
women-gamblers in their midst, making up the pool; a pack of carriages
along the circuit of the track, with all sorts of people, except the
very good; and conspicuous the elegantly habited daughters of sin
and satin, with servants in livery, as if they had been born to it;
gentlemen and ladies strolling about, or reclining on the sward, and a
refreshment-stand in lively operation.

When the bell rang, we all cleared out from the track, and I happened to
get a position by the railing. I was looking over to the Pavilion, where
I supposed the Emperor to be, when the man next to me cried, "Voila!"
and, looking up, two horses brushed right by my face, of which I saw
about two tails and one neck, and they were gone. Pretty soon they came
round again, and one was ahead, as is apt to be the case; and somebody
cried, "Bully for Therise!" or French to that effect, and it was all
over. Then we rushed across to the Emperor's Pavilion, except that I
walked with all the dignity consistent with rapidity, and there, in
the midst of his suite, sat the Man of December, a stout, broad, and
heavy-faced man as you know, but a man who impresses one with a sense of
force and purpose,--sat, as I say, and looked at us through his narrow,
half-shut eyes, till he was satisfied that I had got his features
through my glass, when he deliberately arose and went in.

All Paris was out that day,--it is always out, by the way, when the sun
shines, and in whatever part of the city you happen to be; and it
seemed to me there was a special throng clear down to the gate of the
Tuileries, to see the Emperor and the rest of us come home. He went
round by the Rue Rivoli, but I walked through the gardens. The soldiers
from Africa sat by the gilded portals, as usual,--aliens, and yet always
with the port of conquerors here in Paris. Their nonchalant indifference
and soldierly bearing always remind me of the sort of force the Emperor
has at hand to secure his throne. I think the blouses must look askance
at these satraps of the desert. The single jet fountain in the basin was
springing its highest,--a quivering pillar of water to match the stone
shaft of Egypt which stands close by. The sun illuminated it, and threw
a rainbow from it a hundred feet long, upon the white and green dome
of chestnut-trees near. When I was farther down the avenue, I had the
dancing column of water