There was nothing in or about the house to remind one of its late occupant.  It was used as a granary.  The apartments were filled with straw; a machine for threshing or winnowing was in the parlor; and the room where he died was now converted into a stable, a horse standing where his bed had been.  The position was naked and comfortless, being on the summit of a hill, perpetually swept by the trade-winds, which suffered no living thing to stand, except a few straggling, bare, shadeless trees, which contributed to the disconsolate character of the landscape.  The grave was in a quiet little valley.  It was covered by three plain slabs of stone, closely surrounded by an iron railing; a low wooden paling extended a small distance around; and the whole was overhung by three decaying willows.  The appearance of the place was plain and appropriate.  Nothing was wanting to its unadorned and affecting simplicity.  Ornament could not have increased its beauty, nor inscription have added to its solemnity.

The mighty conqueror slept in the territory of his most inveterate foes; but the path to his tomb was reverently trodden, and those who had stood opposed to him in life forgot that there had been enmity between them.  Death had extinguished hostility; and the pilgrims who visited his resting-place spoke kindly of his memory, and, hoarding some little token, bore it to their distant homes to be prized by their posterity as having been gathered at his grave.

The dome of the Invalides now rises over his remains; his statue again caps the column that commemorates his exploits; and one of his name, advanced by the sole magic of his glory, controls, with arbitrary will and singular ability, the destinies, not of France only, but of Europe.

The nations which united for his overthrow now humbly bow before the family they solemnly pledged themselves should never again taste power, and, with ill-concealed distrust and anxiety, deprecate a resentment that has not been weakened by years nor forgotten in alliances.

Not to them alone has Time hastened to bring that retributive justice which falls alike on empires and individuals.  The son of “The Man” moulders in an Austrian tomb, leaving no trace that he has lived; while the lineal descendant of the obscure Creole, of the deposed empress, of the divorced wife, sits on the throne of Clovis and Charlemagne, of Capet and Bonaparte.  Within the brief space of one generation, within the limit of one man’s memory, vengeance has revolved full circle; and while the sleepless Nemesis points with unresting finger to the barren rock and the insulted captive, she turns with meaning smile to the borders of the Seine, where mausoleum and palace stand in significant proximity,—­the one covering the dust of the first empire, the other the home of the triumphant grandson of Josephine.

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EPIGRAM ON J.M.