you staggering on board a taut little steamer
which, having gorged certain mail-bags,
proceeded to fight her way through the biggest
waves. In two hours afterwards you were at
Calais. No passports, no botheration with
municipalities, commissaires, or stiff-necked
mayors awaited you. Another express train
waited for you, giving you time to despatch a
comfortable supper ; and by seven o'clock on
Saturday morning you were in Paris. You
went to the Porte St. Martin on Saturday
night, and to Mabille afterwards. On Sunday
I hope you went to church, and perhaps you
went to Versailles. On Monday you had a
good deal of boulevard shopping to get through
for your sisters, or for the Mrs. Dash of the
future ; and, after a comfortable five o'clock
dinner at the Café Riche on Monday afternoon,
you found yourself shortly after seven P.M. at
the Chemin de Fer du Nord, and, by six o'clock
on Tuesday morning, you were back again at
Charing-cross or at Victoria. Arrived there,
you had yet a florin and a fifty centime piece
left of the change for a ten-pound note. And yet
you murmur and grumble. You have spoken
heresy against the harbour-master of Dover.
You have hurled bitter words at the directors
of the South-Eastern Railway Company, and
have made mock of the London, Chatham, and
Dover. Thrice have you threatened to write
to the Times. Once did you propose to ' punch'
the head of an obnoxious waiter at the Calais
buffet." To this purport I could say a great
deal if I preached sermons.

My esteemed friend Mr. Nobody abode in
Paris for full six months; but the amount of
sight-seeing he went through was so vast and
his account thereof is so minute that, for
reasons of space, I do not dare to follow him
from each Parisian pillar to its corresponding
post. I can only briefly note that he attended
a sitting of the legislative body in the ci-devant
Palais Bourbon, and that he paid five francs
for admission to the gallery. Drums and fifes
announced the approach of the legislators, and
a guard of honour, consisting of an entire
regiment, escorted them. The president having
taken the chair, more drums and fifes
proclaimed the arrival of three counsellors of state,
bearing a message from the government. These
high republican functionaries were preceded
by ushers wearing Spanish hats with
tricoloured plumes; the counsellors themselves
were dressed in scarlet cloth, richly embroidered.
They ascended the tribune, read their
message, and made three separate speeches on
the subject of honour, glory, and France;
whereafter the legislative body, with loud cries
of "Vive le Premier Consul!" "Vive Madame
Bonaparte!" separated. It was the last
day of the session. Abating the scarlet coats
and the Spanish hats of the huissiers, the break
up of a parliamentary session in 1801 must
have very closely resembled that which we see
in the French Corps Législatif, in 1869. Mr.
Nobody went away much pleased, especially
with the admiration bestowed by his neighbours
in the gallery on Lord Cornwallis, who
was present among the corps diplomatique,
and for whom Mr. Nobody seems himself to
have entertained an affection bordering on
adoration. " Yes, yes," cried an enthusiastic
republican near him, " That tall man is Milord
Cornwallis. He has a fine figure. He looks
like a military man. He has served in the
army. Is it not true, sir? Look at that little
man near him. What a difference! What a
mean appearance!"

Mr. Nobody was in one aspect an exceptional
Englishman. He appears to have been imbued
with a sincere admiration for the talents of
Napoleon Bonaparte, and even to have had
some liking for the personal character of that
individual. " My dear sir," he writes to that
Nameless friend of his on the sixth of
December, " my curiosity is at length gratified.
I have seen Bonaparte. You will readily
conceive how much pleasure I felt to-day in
beholding, for the first time, this extraordinary
man, on whose exertions the fate of France,
and in many respects that of Europe, may be
said to depend." Mr. N. was fortunate enough
to obtain places in the apartments of Duroc,
governor of the Tuileries, from which he
witnessed a review in the Carrousel. The
Consular, soon to become the Imperial, Guard were
inspected by the Master of France, then in the
thirty-third year of his age. He was mounted
on a white charger. As he passed several times
before Mr. Nobody's window, that Impalpability
had ample leisure to observe him; and it
appears to me that the portrait he has drawn
of the First Consul, then in the full flush of
his fame, undarkened by D'Enghien's murder,
Pichegru's imputed end, and, Josephine's divorce,
is sufficient to rescue Mr. Nobody's notes from
oblivion. " His complexion," writes the Unknown,
" is remarkably sallow: his countenance
expressive, but stern; his figure
lithe, but well made; and his whole person,
like the mind which it contains, singular
and remarkable. If I were compelled to
compare him to any one, I should name
Kemble, the actor. Though Bonaparte is
less in size, and less handsome than that
respectable performer, yet, in the construction
of the features and the general expression,
there is a strong resemblance. The picture of
Bonaparte at the review, exhibited some time
back in Piccadilly,* and the bust in Sèvres
china, which is very common in Paris, and has
probably become equally so in London" (it was
soon to be superseded by Gillray's monstrous
caricatures of the Corsican Ogre), " are the
best likenesses I have seen. As to his dress,
he wore the grand costume of his office, that is
to say, a scarlet velvet coat, profusely
embroidered with gold. To this he had added
leather breeches, jockey boots, and a little

* This picture was by Carle Vernet, the father of
Horace, and was exhibited at Fores's— ancestor of the
present well-known print-seller. At Fores's, just eight
years previously, had been on view an engraving of the
execution of Louis the Sixteenth, by Isaac Cruikshank
(father of our George), and a " working model" of the
guillotine.