No, Louisa, I dare not speak of it to the winds. Captain Hutchinson was his companion, Sir Robert Wilson is in another room. The Captain has nothing very interesting in his manner or appearance. He is very plain, very positive, and very angry. Well he may be. So would you if, like him, you had been immured in a room about eight feet by twelve, in which you were forced to eat, sleep, and reside for three months. Their penance closes on the 24th, when Michael Bruce returns to London. I hope you are not going there this year. From such a subject as Michael Bruce it will not do to descend to any of the trifling fopperies of Paris. Let me, then, give you a short account of our visit to Fountain Elephant, which if ever finished, with its concomitant streets, &c., will be an 8th wonder of the world. Its History is this: On the Site of the Bastille (of which not a vestige remains) Buonaparte thought he would erect a fountain, and looking at the Plans of Paris, he conceived the splendid idea of knocking down all the houses between the Thuilleries and this Fountain and forming one wide, straight street, so that from the Palace of the Thuilleries he might see whatever object he might be pleased to place at the extremity. This street is actually begun; when executed, which it never will be, there will be an avenue, partly houses, partly trees, from Barrière d'Étoile to the Fountain, at least six miles. Having got this Fountain in his head, he sent for De Non,[122] who superintended all his works, and said, "De Non, I must have a fountain, and the fountain shall be a beast." So De Non set his wits to work, and talked of Lions and Tigers, &c., when Buonaparte fixed upon an Elephant, with a Castle upon his back, and an Elephant there is. At present they have merely a model of plaister upon which the bronze coating is to be wrought, for the whole is to be in bronze with gilt trappings. He is to stand upon an elevated pedestal, which is already completed. The height will be about 60 feet, nearly as high as Alderley Steeple. The castle will hold water; the inside is to be a room, and the staircase is to be in one of the legs. The porter who showed it was exceedingly proud of the performance, and when I expressed my astonishment at Buonaparte's numerous plans and the difficulty he must have been at to procure money, looking cautiously about him, he said, "Oh, mais il avoit le don d'un Dieu," and then grasping my arm with one hand and tapping me on the shoulder with the other, and again looking round to see if then the coast was clear, he added, "Mais il n'y est plus, ah, vous comprenez cela n'est-ce pas," and then casting a look at his Elephant he concluded with a sigh and a mutter, "Superbe, ah, pardi, que c'est superbe!"