Even up to the morning of November 17, when the passage of the fleet was to be made through the canal, there were persons at Port Said who doubted if it would get through.  The ships-of-war had been directed to enter the canal first, and there was to be between each ship an interval of a quarter of an hour.  They were ordered to steam at the rate of five miles an hour.  “L’Aigle” entered first.  “La Pelouse,” another French ship, had the greatest draught of water; namely, eighteen or nineteen feet.

The scenery from the Suez Canal was not interesting.  Lakes, then undrained, stretched upon either side; the banks of the canal being the only land visible.  But as evening fell, and the sun sank, a rich purple light, with its warm tones, overspread everything, until the moon rose, touching the waters with her silvery sheen.  Before this, however, the foremost ships in the procession had safely reached Ismailia.  There the khedive had erected a new palace in which to review his guests.  They numbered about six thousand, and the behavior of many of them did little credit to civilization.

The khedive had arranged an exhibition of Arab horsemanship and of throwing the Jereed; but the sand was so deep that the horses could not show themselves to advantage.  The empress, wearing a large leghorn hat and yellow veil, rode on a camel; and when an Italian in the crowd shouted to her roughly, “Lean back, or you will fall off, heels over head,” the graceful dignity with which she smiled, and accepted the advice, won the hearts of all beholders.

That night a great ball was given by the khedive in his new palace.  “It was impossible,” says an English gentleman, “to overrate the gracious influence of the empress’s presence.  The occasion, great as it was, would have lost its romance if she had not been there.  She it was who raised the spirit of chivalry, subdued the spirit of strife, enmity, and intrigue among rival men, and over commerce, science, and avarice spread the gauzy hues of poetry.”

Alas! poor empress.  Ten months later, she was hurrying as a fugitive on board an English yacht on her way into exile, having passed through anxieties and griefs that had streaked her hair with gray.  Even in the midst of her personal triumphs in the East, there were clouds on the horizon of her life which she could see darkening and increasing.  A few days before the fetes of the opening of the canal, she writes to her husband, who, though unfit for exertion, had gone into Paris on some state occasion,—­

“I was very anxious about you yesterday, thinking of you in Paris without me; but I see by your telegram that everything passed off well.  When we observe other nations, we can better perceive the injustice of our own.  I think, however, in spite of all, that you must not be discouraged, but continue in the course you have inaugurated.  It is right to keep faith touching concessions that have been granted.  I hope that your speech to the Chamber