There is no institution more worthy of a visit from a tourist than the Hotel des Invalides at Paris. An additional interest has been imparted to it since the remains of the first Napoleon have been deposited in a magnificent mausoleum immediately adjoining. In the front of the building, ranged along the terrace, and also on the eastern and western sides, were a considerable number of cannon, captured in war. I saw guns of Russian, Chinese, Dutch, Austrian, Prussian, and Moorish origin; but amongst them all I do not believe that the English artillery would find an old acquaintance. When you enter the church, your attention is immediately arrested by the flags of various nations pendant from the walls to your right and left, and placed there as captured trophies. On the left hangs an English flag. I asked, on four different occasions, and of different persons, where this color had been taken. The invariable reply was "Leipsic." I thought this very extraordinary, having always supposed that no English were at Leipsic, except a troop of the Rocket Brigade, and certainly they did not carry a color.
The Hotel des Invalides was under the direction of the Minister of War; and in the library of the War Office I have seen several rolls and registries of its former inmates. In such as relate to the period between 1700 and 1775, Irish names are not infrequent; Byrne, Bryan, Carty, Cavanagh, Dunne, Delany, Keogh, Kelly, Corcoran, Quin, Purcell, Redmond, Sullivan, &c., appear to attest the services and sufferings of the Irish Brigade. There are not many "O's"; and I am inclined to believe that in several instances that prefix was laid aside purposely. Scotch names occur, but not at all in such frequency as Irish. Of the occupiers of this splendid military asylum, I can safely affirm that I found them extremely civil, and by no means reserved in their communications. They were proud of their Institution and of the profession with which it was connected; but their conversations exhibited the human character in some thoroughly prejudiced phases. I did not meet amongst the veterans even one individual who had served under "The Emperor," and only three or four who had ever seen him; but all were well versed in the traditions of his military achievements. I had become intimate with Monsieur Turpin, the librarian of the War Office, who understood English perfectly, and he appeared to enjoy, as much as I did, frequent visits to the Invalides, and the peculiar feelings or sentiments expressed by the old soldiers, especially regarding the policy adopted by Napoleon, and the political and military operations to which he had recourse for the extension of French power throughout the world. It was almost an article of faith amongst them, that Napoleon was never conquered by any of his numerous adversaries. They could not admit that he ever committed a military mistake, or was guilty of a moral wrong. In Russia, he was repelled by the frost and snow. At Leipsic he suffered a reverse by the premature explosion of a mine. At Waterloo he was sold. At Paris he was betrayed. It was politically expedient for Napoleon to imprison Ferdinand of Spain, when he entered France as a suitor for the hand of his sister, Pauline; but it was infamous to send Napoleon to St. Helena. It was a noble idea for Napoleon to collect the choicest works of art from every capital on the Continent into the museum of the Louvre; but that their original owners should take them back was robbery. It was glorious to recollect that the victorious eagle of France had triumphantly entered Madrid, Lisbon, Berlin, Rome, Vienna, Milan, Naples, Munich, Venice, Hamburg, and Moscow; but that the European powers should ever think of returning the visit—that the Russians should have threatened to shell Paris from the heights of Montmartre—that the Prussians should have encamped in the Bois de Boulogne, and the English in the Champs Elysées, was a degradation, an insult never to be forgotten nor forgiven. After all, perhaps, these Frenchmen are fair specimens of human vanity, of human resentments, and only think and speak as we would think and speak if we had, like them, to revert to a series of astonishing military successes terminating in our complete discomfiture.
CHAPTER XXXIII. GAIN PREFERRED TO GLORY—CURIOUS INSCRIPTION—FORMER GAMBLING—AN ASSAULT—FRENCH CHARITY—A LETTER TO HEAVEN—FATHER PROUT.
When a stranger surveys the military asylum for the maimed or aged soldiers—when he beholds the triumphal arch (l'arc de l'Etoile) at the higher termination of the Champs Elysées, erected at the almost incredible cost of £417,812, to commemorate the achievements of the French armies—when he contemplates the column in the Place Vendôme, towering to the height of 135 feet, and cased with bas reliefs, of which 360,000 pounds weight of captured cannon supplied the material—when he observes large and frequent bodies of troops marching with beat of drum to various posts—when he finds it impossible to glance at any crowded street, or enter any place of public resort or recreation, without beholding the uniforms of, perhaps, every branch of the service, he is almost forced to the conclusion that the bent of the French disposition, and the genius of the nation, is essentially military. However, I believe that an observant and reflecting mind will notice many points in the French character of an unmilitary tendency. Whenever a campaign or expedition becomes the subject of conversation in a French circle, the first consideration is, How much will it cost, and what shall we gain? Solferino and Magenta are prized more as having annexed Nice, than for the laurels they conferred on French valor. I frequently visited the triumphal arch to which I have already adverted; and on one occasion I was struck by the remark of a Frenchman in reference to the enormous sum it cost, and also to the surprising fact, that although the names of more than ninety victories are inscribed on its interior walls, not one of those places was then in the possession of the victorious power.
CURIOUS INSCRIPTION.
On the 15th of August, 1864, the birth day of the first Napoleon, the fête of the Bonaparte family was celebrated by various public demonstrations. The rails surrounding the base of the column in the Place Vendôme were decorated with violet-colored ribbons and wreaths of Immortelles. Amongst them I observed a large oval tablet richly bordered, and bearing an inscription in Italian, which I transcribe and translate, leaving its applicability to the character of the first Napoleon to the calm and dispassionate judgment of all acquainted with the history of Europe from the time of his appearance at the siege of Toulon to the subversion of his power at Waterloo—
"A Te, essere il piu maraviglioso della creazione, il cielo conceda quella pace che ti negò la malvagita degli uomini."
"To you, the most wonderful being of the creation, heaven grants that peace which the waywardness of mankind denied you."