six in diameter descends from the pavement. A stone railing surrounds it and from over this one may look down upon the sarcophagus of the great Emperor. It consists of a single block of reddish-brown sandstone, resting on a pedestal and weighing 67 tons. On the pavement of the crypt are recorded the names of the victories Napoleon gained and 60 flags taken in those battles are supported by the 12 colossal statues that surrounded the sarcophagus. The crypt is entered from a grand stairway at the rear of the hall on the two sides of which are tombs of Duroc and Bertrand, the Emperor's faithful friends, the latter of whom was his companion at St. Helena, and followed his remains to their present resting place. From the lofty dome a pale-blue light is thrown upon this solemn scene. Its effect is singularly mournful. There could scarcely be a more appropriate resting place for one who lived the stormiest of all human lives." France has given him the tomb he merited from her hand, if from no other. His dauntless spirit "tamed at last by death alone " seems still to echo forth that mournful farewell which Byron has put into

verse:

"Farewell to thee France, when thy diadem crowned me,

"I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth, "But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found

thee,

"Decayed in thy glory and sunk in thy worth.”

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*

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"Farewell to thee France; But when Liberty rallies, "Once more in thy regions remember me then, "The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys: "Though withered, thy tears will unfold it again."

LETTER IX.

WAYSIDE TOPICS IN FRANCE.

Dec.

CELOZ, 28.-Perhaps the reader knows as of little Culozas I did before going there, SO let me preface a few words. It lies in the southeast of France; is many hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet above the sea; is a very small town and is built on solid rock. A railroad enters it through a narrow defile in the mountain, and passes out through another. The mountains are bleak and barren, and surround it on all sides. It suggests Thermopylæ. Here a train from Paris yesterday at daybreak left me. Proceeding thence by another road to Lyons to visit a friend, I have now returned and shall go hence into Italy. Already the name "Italia" has come from the lips of brakemen and other railroad employees. Before setting out for that fair and historic land, this isolated corner of France will be a good place to write of certain wandering and random thoughts and impressions which the country has given.

To a native of a country that has an area

which seems boundless compared with that of France, whose Congress favors a small standing army and one of whose great parties favors a still further reduction of that army, the trained and uniformed soldiers that meet him here in a time of peace are interesting enough. They appear the moment foot is set on the soil. Balais has a fortress, old as Agincourt, and it may be older; soldiers garrison it and appear at the railway station. All the way through the country to Paris, at Rouen, Amien and other towns, they enter the trains, or promenade the streets. In Paris raw recruits are drilling, likewise at Versailles. They stand at portals of all public buildings, musket in hand or sword at the side, turning your footsteps if you intrude. The tranquility that prevailed throughout Paris was very noticeable. The streets were always busy with passing throngs of people, but never in disorder. I saw no intoxicated men, no street quarrels, nothing to gather such sudden crowds as are of daily occurrence in American cities. And what was stranger still, policemen were rare and far from active. It formed a strange contrast with London or New York. The soldiers have perhaps largely dispensed with a well equipped police force, but even they seemed to exercise few if any of the police functions outside of the public buildings which they are commissioned to protect. I doubt not the superior detective system of Paris in times past has raised up many a Javert and thus gradually brought about more security in the street. After a few days in the city one feels safe in any part of it. No

one at shops, banks or hotels takes him for a rascal as they so often do in America. They assume he is no "sharper" until he proves himself one. This remark applying not only to Paris but to London. I have been in hotels where no one knew my name, my nationality or my business; and have drawn money at banks where no questions were asked and no indentification demanded. Of course this is poor protection against forgery, but it presupposes that the crime of forgery

is rare.

It also assumes that men are honest. I need not add that in this respect these French and English are a long way ahead of us in America.

The railway trains in Europe are an engaging curiosity. One may have heard much of them, but that takes away little of his interest-rather adds to it, in fact. The cars being so much smaller than ours in every respect, they seem at first half like toys. The locomotives, also small, and having no ornaments in brass, no "cow-catcher" and sometimes no "cab," are grotesque in the extreme. The gauge of the roads is narrow, the wheels of the cars large and open, having spokes. This adds an air of lightness, almost a fragile appearance, to the train. The freight cars are also small-not over half the size of the American-and would be poor economy on our great trunk lines from the Atlantic to the West. Each passenger car, as the reader knows, is divided into three compartments by partitions from one side to the other, so that a person can step in from a side door that is usually on a level with the platforms at the

depots. One certainly enjoys more comfort in them than in the American cars. If he have a few friends, they can fill the compartment and be alone with themselves throughout the journey. If he be alone, he can secure himself against strangers by giving half a dollar to the conductor, or "guard," as the English call him. Once in the compartment, he has no annoyance from people opening a window in front of him, from a crowd of young men fresh from a tailor's hands who insist on promenading the aisles and opening the doors, from conductors taking tickets between every station, from breakmen slamming the doors, from peanut peddlers and the persistent newsboy, who take you for a mean fellow if you don't buy. The man who has paid for a comfortable ride, realizes that he is getting it. He shows his ticket when he

enters the compartment, and surrenders it when he leaves it. They take him for an honest man, and if he try to ride further than his ticket permits, he is called upon to pay three times the regular fare. When night comes on a lamp is admitted from the top of the car; no one comes into the compartment with it. To keep your feet warm, they put a hollow iron log, covered with Brussels carpeting and filled with hot water, under your feet -you have no smoke to spoil your temper, and no fire half a car's length away and surrounded with people and parcels. Every hour or less they put in a fresh foot warmer, and at every station the name is called out as the train passes into the depot; it is not sounded in your ear from the open door and followed by a slam.