ds, followed by Prince Albert and the royal children -- The
Emperor rides by the side of her carriage -- Comments on the
population -- An old salt on the situation -- An old soldier's
retort -- The general feeling -- Arrival in Paris -- The
Parisians' reception of the Queen -- A description of the route
-- The apartments of the Queen at St. Cloud -- How the Queen
spent Sunday -- Visits the art section of the Exhibition on
Monday -- Ingres and Horace Vernet presented to her --
Frenchmen's ignorance of English art in those days -- English and
French art critics -- The Queen takes a carriage drive through
Paris -- Not a single cry of "Vive l'Angleterre!" a great many of
"Vive la Reine" -- England making a cats-paw of France --
Reception at the Elysee-Bourbon -- "Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr"
at St. Cloud -- Alexandre Dumas would have liked to see the
Queen -- Visit to Versailles -- State-performances at the Opera
-- Ball at the Hotel de Ville -- The Queen's dancing -- Canrobert
on "the Queen's dancing and her soldiers' fighting" -- Another
visit to the Exhibition -- Beranger misses seeing the Queen -- "I
am not going to see the Queen, but the woman" -- A review in the
Champ-de-Mars -- A visit to Napoleon's tomb -- Jerome's absence
on the plea of illness -- Marshal Vaillant's reply to the Emperor
when the latter invites him to take Jerome's place -- His
comments on the receptions given by the Emperor to foreign
sovereigns -- Fetes at Versailles -- Homeward 336

CHAPTER XVIII.

Marshal Vaillant -- The beginning of our acquaintance -- His
stories of the swashbucklers of the First Empire, and the beaux
of the Restauration -- Rabelaisian, but clever -- Marshal
Vaillant neither a swashbuckler nor a beau; hated both -- Never
cherished the slightest illusions about the efficiency of the
French army -- Acknowledged himself unable to effect the desired
and necessary reforms -- To do that, a minister of war must
become a fixture -- Why he stayed -- Careful of the public
moneys, and of the Emperor's also -- Napoleon III.'s lavishness
-- An instance of it -- Vaillant never dazzled by the grandeur of
court entertainments -- Not dazzled by anything -- His hatred of
wind-bags -- Prince de Canino -- Matutinal interviews -- Prince
de Canino sen