The coffin was raised and opened. The face was perfect. The beard, which had been shaved before the burial, had apparently a week's growth. The white satin which had lined the lid of the coffin had crumbled into dust, and lay like a mist over the body, which was dressed in a green uniform, with the cocked hat across its knees. The corpse was transferred to another coffin brought from France, and was carried over the rough rocks of St. Helena by English soldiers. All the honors that in that remote island England could give to her former captive were respectfully offered; and early in December, 1840, news arrived in Paris that the "Belle Poule" had reached Havre. This was sooner than her arrival had been looked for, and at once all Paris was in a scramble of preparation. Laborers and artists worked night and day. The weather was piercingly cold. Indeed, no less than three hundred English were said to have died of colds contracted on the day of the funeral procession. The body was landed at Courbevoie from a flat-bottomed barge that had been constructed to bring it up the Seine. Courbevoie is about two miles from the Arch of Triumph, which is again nearly the same distance from the Place de la Concorde. Between each gilded lamp-post, with its double burners, and beneath long rows of leafless trees, were colossal plaster statues of Victory, alternating with colossal vases burning incense by day, and inflammable materials for illumination by night. Thus the procession attending the body had about five miles to march from the place of disembarkation to the Invalides, on the left bank of the Seine. The spectators began to assemble before dawn. All along the route scaffoldings had been erected, containing rows upon rows of seats. All the trees, bare and leafless at that season, were filled with freezing _gamins_. All the wide pavements were occupied. Before long, rows of National Guards fringed the whole avenue. They were to fall in behind the procession as it passed, and accompany it to the Invalides. The arrival of the funeral barge had been retarded while the authorities hastened the preparations for its reception. When the body of Napoleon was about to re-land on French soil, "cannon to right of it, cannon to left of it, volleyed and thundered." The coffin was received beneath what was called a votive monument,--a column one hundred feet in height, with an immense gilded globe upon the top, surmounted by a gilded eagle twenty feet high. Banners and tripods were there _ad libitum_, and a vast plaster bas-relief cast in the "Belle Poule's" honor.