In 1815 the French newspapers announced the departure of Bonaparte from Elba, his progress through France, and entry into Paris, in the following manner:
March 9. The Anthropophagus has quitted his den.—March 10. The Corsican Ogre has landed at Cape Juan.—March 11. The Tiger has arrived at Gap.—March 12. The Monster slept at Grenoble.—March 13. The Tyrant has passed through Lyons.—March 14. The Usurper is directing his steps toward Dijon, but the brave and loyal Burgundians have risen en masse, and surrounded him on all sides.—March 18. Bonaparte is only sixty leagues from the capital; he has been fortunate enough to escape the hands of his pursuers.—March 19. Bonaparte is advancing with rapid steps, but he will never enter Paris.—March 20. Napoleon will, to-morrow, be under our ramparts.—March 21. The Emperor is at Fontainebleau.—March 22. His Imperial and Royal Majesty yesterday evening arrived at the Tuileries, amid the joyful acclamations of his devoted and faithful subjects.
The Story of the Snow Elinora.
A True Tale of the South Seas That Tells of the Remarkable Experience
of an American Trading-Vessel and Its Skipper's Terrible
Revenge, More Than a Century Ago.
At the time that Commodore Dewey's squadron hurled its showers of lead and steel upon the doomed ships of the Spanish admiral in Manila Bay, scores of mushroom bards uncovered their lyres and described the sensations of the echoes that had the honor of bearing, "for the first time in the history of the world," the sounds of Yankee guns among the startled islands of the Pacific. But the bards were wrong. The echoes performed that office during the first administration of George Washington as President of the United States.
The incident is one which apparently has escaped the notice of historians, else it would have been recalled shortly before the close of last year when political circles in France were somewhat fluttered by a rumor that as a result of a series of secret negotiations the French government had expressed its willingness to sell to the United States the island of Tahiti.
The rumor was soon denied officially, but in the meantime thousands of Americans had taken down their atlases, looked up the situation of the island, and asked themselves what the United States wanted with it anyway.
But there was a little story concerning the island of Tahiti, formerly known as Otaheite, that the atlases and gazetteers did not give them—the story of a Yankee skipper's revenge. It tells how American guns commanded respect for the flag in the South Seas in the year 1790.