I contemplated the character of this extraordinary man, reared in the luxuries of Palaces, thrown thus into the midst of the vast and dreary forests of the Mississippi, launching his fragile boat and staking his life upon its dangerous waves, and laying his wearied limbs upon its damp and foggy banks at night, amidst the howling wolves and rattlesnakes and mosquitoes; and after that, and all these adventures, called, in the commotions of his country, to mount the throne and wield the sceptre over one of the greatest and most enlightened nations of the earth. I beheld this great man in these strange vicissitudes of life, and France, whose helm he took in the midst of a tempest, now raised to the zenith of her national wealth and glory, after 17 years of uninterrupted peace and prosperity. I contemplated the present wealth and health of that nation and her institutions, her grand internal improvements, and cultivation of science and the arts; and I reflected also, with equal pleasure and surprise, on what I had seen with my own eyes, the _greatness of soul_ of that monarch as he was taking the poor Indians of the forest by the hand in his Palace, and expressing to them the gratitude he never yet had lost sight of, that he bore them for the kindness with which their tribes everywhere treated him when he entered their wigwams, hungry, on the banks of the Mississippi and the great lakes in America. He had the frankness and truthfulness to tell them that "he loved them," for the reasons he had given, and the kindness of heart to convince them of his sincerity in the way that carries the most satisfactory conviction to the mind of an Indian as well as it often does to that of a white man. These contemplations were rapid and often repeated, and there were many more; and they never passed through my mind without compelling me to admire and revere the man whose energy of character and skill have enabled him, with like success, to steer his pirogue amidst the snags of the Mississippi, and at the helm of his nation, to guide her out of the tempest of a revolution, and onward, through a reign of peace and industry, to wealth and power, to which she never before has attained. In the midst of such reflections I often strolled alone in a contemplative mood through the wilderness throngs of the Boulevards--the great central avenue and crossing-place--the _aorta_ of all the circulating world--to gaze upon the endless throng of human beings sweeping by me, bent upon their peculiar avocations of business or of pleasure--of virtue or of vice; contrasting the glittering views about me with the quiet and humble scenes I had witnessed in various parts of my roaming life.