There is the harbour from which we started only a few days ago, although it seems to me we have been voyaging for months, and we enter just as noon is striking. The men are radiant on finding themselves back again, though Bernard repeats at every other moment: "Ah, sir! our poor little boat; it went to my heart, to see it go down like that!" As for me, I took the four o'clock train, to go and dine with my friend in the principality of Monaco. I wish I had time to write at length about this surprising state; smaller than many a village in France, but wherein one may find an absolute sovereign, bishops, an army of Jesuits and _seminarists_ more numerous than that of the ruler; an artillery, the guns of which are nearly all rifled, an etiquette more ceremonious than that of his lamented Majesty Louis XIV., principles of authority more despotic than those of William of Prussia, joined to a magnificent toleration for the vices of humanity, on which indeed, live both sovereign, bishops, Jesuits, _seminarists,_ ministers, army, magistrates, every one in short. Hail to this great pacific monarch, who without fear of invasion or revolution, reigns peacefully over his happy little flock of subjects, in the midst of court ceremonies which preserve intact the traditions of the four reverences, the twenty-six handkissings, and all the forms used once upon a time around Great Rulers. This monarch, moreover, is neither sanguinary nor vindictive, and when he banishes, for he does banish sometimes, the measure is put in force with the utmost delicacy. Is a proof needful? An obstinate player, on a day of ill luck, insulted the sovereign. A decree was issued for his expulsion. During a whole month, he prowled around the forbidden Paradise, fearing the sword blade of the archangel, in the guise of the sabre of the policeman. One day, however, he hardened his heart, crossed the frontier, reached the very centre of the kingdom in thirty seconds, and penetrated into the precincts of the Casino. But suddenly an official stopped him: "Are you not banished, sir?" "Yes, sir, but I leave by the next train." "Oh! in that case it is all right. You can go in." And every week he came back: and each time, the same functionary asked him the same question, to which he invariably gave the same answer. Could justice be more gentle? Within the last few years, however, a very serious and novel case occurred within the kingdom. This was an assassination. A man, a native of Monaco, not one of the wandering strangers of whom one meets legions on these shores--a husband, in a moment of anger, killed his wife; killed her without rhyme or reason, without any excuse that could be accepted. Indignation was unanimous throughout the principality. The Supreme Court met to judge this exceptional case (a murder had never taken place before), and the wretch was with one voice, condemned to death. The indignant sovereign ratified the sentence.