I reached Paris on the 8th of March; I was obliged to spend forty-eight hours there, as there were certain matters to which I was compelled to attend, also I was anxious to see Mr. John Dent, the head of the famous China house, and Baron Overbeck, the Austrian Consul General in Hong Kong, who was going East by the same mail. It was no great penance having to pass two evenings in Paris with them, for there was much going on, and Offenbach’s “Belle Hélène” a delight, with Schneider and Dupuis, was in full swing. Was there ever a piece half so gay, half so witty, or half so impudent! The face of Paris when Helen showed him “mes portraits de famille,” Jupiter and Leda, Jupiter and Europa, Jupiter and Danae, etc., was something to remember! The 10th of March, 1865, was a fateful day for the Napoleonic Dynasty, for on that day the Duc de Morny, Louis Napoléon’s half brother and most devoted friend, died. He was attended by Sir Joseph Olliffe, the physician of the English Embassy, arousing great jealousy among the French doctors, who of course swore that his life might have been saved. Morny was the son of the Comte de Flahault, an old friend of my father’s whom I knew when he was ambassador in London, and Queen Hortense. When Louis Napoléon became President of the Republic the two brothers met for the first time, and the deepest affection immediately sprang up between the two. Under the Empire, Morny who with Maupas, Persigny, and St. Arnaud, had been one of the chief actors in the _coup d’état_ of 1851, became President of the Corps Législatif, and held that office until 1856, when he went as ambassador to St. Petersburg, and in great splendour represented Louis Napoléon at the coronation of the Emperor Alexander the Second. On his return to Paris in 1857 he again took up the post of President.