eternity. Time is a mere repetition of events,
each having a beginning and an end. Eternity
is not made up of events; and has, therefore,
no beginning and no end.

MATCH-MAKING MAJESTY.

THE negotiations for a certain Franco-
Piedmontese marriage, held to be a fore-
runner of mischief, were opened last summer
at Plombières, in a small château that has
a beautiful garden. The frontage of this
residence borders a narrow street; the
windows of the drawing-rooms are at the back,
and look over the shady garden to some
hills which rise abruptly out from the road
leading to the Val d'Ajol. There is nothing
to disturb the repose of the scene. The
trees, rich in foliage, are musical with
singing birds; the rippling of the mountain
streams blends with the rustle of the summer
air, and a sweet odour of natural flowers
floats from the hill-sides. There is little
traffic in the street seen through the wide
entrance gateway. Everything would tell of
peace, but for the ring of arms within the
great court-yard where soldiers, fully
accoutred, are continually on the alert. Two
sentries are on the upper road above the
garden, keeping keen watch upon certain
windows shaded with red and white awnings.
They open upon a balcony. Lower down
a fierce sapper, "bearded like the pard,"
stands to ward all men off a railed pavement
whence they may behold the majesty of
France taking the air in the valley. His
Majesty is not on horseback, nor in uniform.

Is it treasonable to tell how the Emperor
looks at Plombières, divested of external
pomp? He is grizzled, cadaverous, and
lame in the left hip, and labours to conceal
that last defect. His walk is awkward. He
turns out his toes, and leans heavily on the
strong stick he carries in his well-gloved
hand. He is carefully dressed; but, though
his coat fits him very accurately, he has
nothing of the air of a perfectly dressed man.
His figure is not improved by the cuirass
which his coat will not conceal. Every
step he takes is studied, while his eye scans
every passer-by with a look which has
something uncanny in its expression.

In that small salon looking over the breezy
garden, one hot summer's day last year, the
Princess Clotilde of Sardinia was marked for
marriage. She is married now.

The world hears that her husband is the
image of the First Napoleon. He is certainly
wonderfully like the portraits of his uncle,
but (I am a woman and am critical upon
outsides of men) cast in a coarser mould. He
is a large, loose, and yellow edition of that
"little corporal." He is short-sighted, and
screws his glass in his eye in a way that does
not improve the expression of his heavy,
passionless face. He speaks in an abrupt tone.
They say he imitates the great Napoleon.
He is clever; and, though wary enough to
avoid the schemes that occasionally beset
him, he has, I believe, less of the intriguer
about him than most Bonapartes; except his
father, who keeps to his path, and is much
respected.

What the French Emperor's views were,
last July, when he and the Sardinian envoy
closed the bargain in the summer parlour at
Plombières, it is not my purpose to discuss;
but, as this little town in the Vosges has
been, and probably will be, the scene of many
a memorable compact and wily debate, and
as it lies in a department of France little
known to English travellers at this moment
as an Imperial retreat, let me describe the
place.

The Vosges, called the Switzerland of
France, lies among wooded mountains and
calm, shadowy lakes famous for trout. In a
gorge of these mountain passes the Roman
Legions one day halted; and, finding it a
pleasant place, bivouacked on the spot, and cast
about them, as they always did, for water-
springs. They found not only these, but the
warm fountains over which they built their
bathing-chambers; the remains of which are
the foundation of the famous baths of
Plombières. King Stanislaus improved upon them,
and the Emperor Louis Napoleon is likely to
perfect them.

As the railway has not yet penetrated the
Vosges beyond Epinal, a little south of
Nancy (an old town lying off the Strasbourg
line) we approach Plombières by a carriage
route passing through picturesque valleys
watered by the blue Moselle, that useful
stream which yields the finest fish of its
kind in the world, and turns the wheels of
many a mill and factory. It makes a pleasant
murmur in the deep retired nooks of this
Gallic Switzerland, and washes the base of
many a steep crowned with the ruins of old
castles. The mill and factory are not so
pretty as these ruins; but the people look
the happier for them; working in their cottage
gardens, plying their nets in the streams,
or singing as they sit picking cotton under
the trees. We dip suddenly into the gorge
where the Roman soldiers rested on their
arms two thousand years ago. Folks from
the Rhine (German foresters) were here
before them, having crossed Alsace, and
traversed the mountain barrier, which even
now is difficult of access.

Plombières has preserved its ancient look.
It was on a glowing day that I first saw it,
and the place was then put into gala-dress in
honour of the recent entrée of Napoleon, who
is its patron saint just now. Streams of red,
white, blue, and amber calico fluttered from
windows of grey granite houses; and the
waving of the brilliant tricolor had a striking
effect in the shade of the hills which rise
abruptly on each side of the town. These
hills are almost covered with fir-trees, from
among which there jut out massive crags