Surely you must have forgot what it is to be divided by land and sea from what you love, or when you were abroad you left nobody behind whom you cared about, or you would not fancy that I should not find time or inclination to read as many trifles as you can find to send, or that they should not give me almost as much pleasure, and be read with as much interest, as if I were shut up in the next dungeon to Mr. Bruce at La Force.... While you were enjoying the view of Beeston Castle, we were eating strawberries and cream under the trees in the Jardin des Plantes on the only hot day we have had.... I am in no danger of forgetting you, and if I have not written oftener, it has only been because Edward got the start of me in beginning to write in detail, and he is so inimitable in description that I could not go over the same ground with him.... I do wish I could give you one of our day's amusement, and jump you over here in mind and body to leave all your cares behind you.... At last we have bid goodbye to Paris, but every day seemed to bring something fresh to see, and we stayed two or three days longer than we intended yesterday to see St. Denis. It is not so fine as most of the churches we saw in Holland, but the historical interest is so great and so curious that I would not have missed seeing it for the world. Over the door all the guillotined figures of the Revolution; in the church the repairs which were begun by Buonaparte, now finishing by Louis; every stone and step you go marked by some association of one or other of these periods. As Buonaparte's own power increased, his respect for crowned heads and authorities increased, I suppose, and so he had put up _Fleurs de Lys_ himself for the Bourbons in one part of the church, and he had prepared a vault for himself, decorated above with bees and statues of the six Kings of France who had the title of Emperor. To this vault he had made two bronze doors with gold ornaments and gold lions' heads, one of which flew back with a spring, and discovered three keyholes, to which there were three golden keys. The Sacristy he filled with chef d'œuvres of the best French artists, representing those parts of the History of France connected with St. Denis and with his own views of Empire. The beautiful white marble steps leading to the altar beneath which the seventh Emperor was to be laid were just finished when Louis XVIII. came to fill the tomb, which was just prepared, with the bones of Louis XVI., to depose the Emperor, to complete the marble pavement, and to extend the _fleurs de lys_ over the whole church.