'That poodle of literature,' said O'Hara, 'he sang any amount of nonsense, like the rest of them. Which of his verses are you thinking of now?' 'Have it, if you must: '"In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try, Love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail, But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-bye!"' 'Is that _your_ experience?' queried O'Hara. 'Respect your seniors, _blanc-bec_,'[12] growled O'Hoolohan. 'At your excellency's orders,' returned O'Hara, with mock obsequiousness. 'But I can cap your quotation with another from Master Tommy Little, which will give us an excuse for fresh bocks at all events: '"----fill the cup--where'er, boy, Our choice may fall, our choice may fall; We're sure to find Love there, boy, So drink them all, so drink them all!"' 'I don't mind pledging that,' assented O'Hoolohan, 'but I wish all the same the lass and you had got spooney on each other. This sort of nuptial knot has a kink in it. As for Berthe and myself, we're happy as Midsummer Day, but conscientiously I can offer _you_ no congratulations.' 'Your good wishes are all I want. There are marriages of affection, of interest, of spite, and of necessity; but this is the first time, I venture to say, you have heard of a marriage of esteem,' and O'Hara folded his arms and looked philosophic. 'By my hand,' remarked O'Hoolohan, 'you're an original. I can't make you out. I give you up.' CHAPTER XV. THE FIFTH OF MAY, 1870. It was the forty-ninth anniversary of the death of the eagle chained to the rock--of the Prometheus who was not unbound--of Napoleon Bonaparte imprisoned at St. Helena. Captivity, despair, dropsy--these were the last scenes in the great world-drama of the modern Cæsar, the little lieutenant of artillery, who sprang from the obscurity of his islet-home in the Mediterranean to the perilous eminence of the purple. This was the end of the spoiled child of victory. On this day the veterans of his wars, 'the old of the old,' mustered at the foot of his monument in the Place Vendôme, in the core of the busy city--the monument which typified him as the Conquering Hero, who was the ideal of French martial aspirations--the being after the nation's heart. Proudly uprises in the middle of the square the tall pillar--an immense trophy covered with plates of bronze from the monster crucible in which the captured cannon of the Austrians were melted down. The statue of the Imperial soldier is on the summit, laurel-crowned, garbed in regal mantle, the sceptre in one hand, the orb in the other. It would have been better if it were sword or _bâton_, instead of sceptre or orb--the chasseur's jacket of Marengo, instead of the regal mantle--the three-cornered hat, instead of the garland of Roman triumph.