lace -- His
comments on the receptions given by the Emperor to foreign
sovereigns -- Fetes at Versailles -- Homeward.

Magnificent as were the quasi-private entertainments at Compiegne, and
the more public ones at the Tuileries, they were as nothing to the
series of fetes on the occasion of Queen Victoria's visit to Paris, in
1855. For nearly three months before, the capital had assumed the aspect
of a fair. The Exposition Universelle of '55 virtually inaugurated the
era of "middle-class excursions," which since then have assumed such
colossal proportions, especially with regard to the English. Previous to
this the development of railways had naturally brought many of our
countrymen to Paris, but they were of a different class from those who
now invaded the French metropolis. They were either men of business
bent on business, though not averse to enjoying themselves in the
intervals, or else belonging or pretending to belong to "the upper ten,"
and travelling more or less _en grand seigneurs_. They came singly, and
left their cards at the Embassy, etc. The new visitors came in groups,
though not necessarily acquainted or travelling with one another; they
knew nothing of the Hotel Meurice and the Hotel Bristol or their
traditions; they crowded the Palais-Royal and its cheap restaurants, and
had, so to speak, no French at their command. Notwithstanding the
exclamation of the Frenchman when he saw the statue of Wellington
opposite Apsley House, it was then, and then only, that the _revanche_
of Waterloo began. It has lasted ever since. It was '55 that marked the
appearance in the shop-windows of small cards bearing the words,
"English spoken here." Hitherto the English visitor to Paris was
commonly supposed to have had a French tutor or governess, and though
the French he or she did speak was somewhat trying to the ear, it was
heavenly music compared to the English the Parisian shopkeeper now held
it incumbent upon himself to "trot out" for the benefit of his
customers, or that of the guide or valet de place, legions of whom
infested the streets.

The Exhibition was opened on the 15th of May, but Queen Victoria was not
expected until the middle of August. Meanwhile, the Parisians were
treated to a sight of the Lord Mayor--Sir F. Moon, I believe--and the
aldermen, who came in the beginning of June, and who were magnificently
entertained by the Paris municipality, a deputation of which went as far
as Boulogne t