It was two o'clock in the morning. The first official reception had been arranged to take place at Dijon, where we were due to arrive at nine o'clock. I took my seat in the train and we started. Not everybody was asleep. In the last carriage, which was reserved for the servants, a number of maids, wrapped in those beautiful red shawls which you see on the quays at Naples, were chattering away, with the greatest animation, in Italian. The echoes of that musical and expressive language reached the compartment in which I was trying to doze and called up memories of my childhood in my old Corsican heart.
It was broad daylight and we were nearing Dijon when Count Guicciardini, the King's master of the horse, came to fetch me to present me to the sovereigns.
Two black, grave, proud and gentle eyes; a forehead framed in a wealth of dark hair; beautiful and delicate features; a smile that produced two little dimples on either side of the mouth; a tall, slight figure; I at once recognised the lady of Milan in the charming sovereign, stately and shy, who came stepping towards me. It was the same little white hand that she put out again, this time, however, that I might press upon it the homage of my respectful welcome. Should I recall the incident of the gloves? I had it on my lips to do so. I was afraid of appearing ridiculous; of course, she did not remember. I said nothing.
"Delighted, M. Paoli, delighted to know you!" exclaimed the King, fixing me with his piercing eyes and shaking me vigorously by the hand.
"Sir."
"But stay; Paoli is an Italian name!"
"Very nearly, Sir; I am a Corsican."
"A fellow-countryman of Napoleon's, then? I congratulate you!"
Our conversation, that morning, was limited to these few words. From Dijon onwards, the journey assumed an official character; and I lost sight of the King and Queen amid the crowd of glittering uniforms. However, a few minutes before our arrival at Paris, I surprised them both standing against a window-pane, the Queen in an exquisite costume of pale-grey velvet and silk, the King in the uniform of an Italian general, with the broad ribbon of the Legion of Honour across his chest. While watching the landscape, they exchanged remarks that appeared to me to be of an affectionate nature.
Meanwhile, a sedate footman entered and discreetly placed upon the table, behind the sovereigns, an extraordinary object that attracted my eyes. It looked like an enormous bird buried in its feathers; it was at one and the same time resplendent and voluminous. I came closer and then saw that it was a helmet, just a helmet, covered with feathers of fabulous dimensions. I was not the only one, for that matter, to be astonished at the imposing proportions of this head-dress; whenever the King donned it in Paris, it met with a huge success; it towered above the crowds, the livery-servants' cockades, the soldiers' bayonets; it became the target of every kodak.