After this came more Soldiers, General Officers, Sub-Officers, Marshals, and what was said to be the prettiest sight almost of the whole, the banners of the eighty-six Departments of France.  These are due to the invention of M. Thiers, and were to have been accompanied by federates from each Department.  But the government very wisely mistrusted this and some other projects of Monsieur Thiers; and as for a federation, my dear, it has been tried. Next comes—­

His Royal Highness, the Prince de Joinville.

The 600 sailors of the “Belle Poule” marching in double file on each side of

The car.

[Hush! the enormous crowd thrills as it passes, and only some few voices cry Vive l’Empereur!  Shining golden in the frosty sun—­with hundreds of thousands of eyes upon it, from houses and housetops, from balconies, black, purple, and tricolor, from tops of leafless trees, from behind long lines of glittering bayonets under schakos and bear-skin caps, from behind the Line and the National Guard again, pushing, struggling, heaving, panting, eager, the heads of an enormous multitude stretching out to meet and follow it, amidst long avenues of columns and statues gleaming white, of standards rainbow-colored, of golden eagles, of pale funereal urns, of discharging odors amidst huge volumes of pitch-black smoke,

The great imperial chariot Rolls majestically on.

The cords of the pall are held by two Marshals, an Admiral and General
Bertrand; who are followed by—­

The Prefects of the Seine and Police, &c.

The Mayors of Paris, &c.

The Members of the Old Guard, &c.

A Squadron of Light Dragoons, &c.

Lieutenant-General Schneider, &c.

More cavalry, more infantry, more artillery, more everybody; and as the procession passes, the Line and the National Guard forming line on each side of the road fall in and follow it, until it arrives at the Church of the Invalides, where the last honors are to be paid to it.]

Among the company assembled under the dome of that edifice, the casual observer would not perhaps have remarked a gentleman of the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh, who nevertheless was there.  But as, my dear Miss Smith, the descriptions in this letter, from the words in page 298, line 20—­the party moved—­up to the words paid to it, on this page, have purely emanated from your obedient servant’s fancy, and not from his personal observation (for no being on earth, except a newspaper reporter, can be in two places at once), permit me now to communicate to you what little circumstances fell under my own particular view on the day of the 15th of December.