Forth he walks, a firm, short, stolid form, with falling shoulders beneath his tight, deep-blue frock. His tread is heavy rather than majestic,--that of a man who has a purpose in walking, not merely to show himself as a parade. His head is large, and formed with a perfection which we call classic; his features are noble, modelled by that hand of Nature which framed this man "fearfully," indeed, and "wonderfully." Nothing was ever finer than his mouth--nothing more disappointing than his eye; it is heavy, almost mournful. His face is pale, almost sallow, while--let one speak who beheld him--"not only in the eye, but in every feature, care, thought, melancholy, and meditation are strongly marked, with so much of character, nay, genius, and so penetrating a seriousness, or rather sadness, as powerfully to sink into an observer's mind." It is the countenance of a student, not of a warrior; of one deep in unpractical meditation, not of one whose every act and plan had then been but a tissue of successes. It is the face of a man wedded to deep thought, not of the hero of the battle-field, the ruler of assemblies; and, as if to perfect the contrast, whilst all around is gorgeous and blazing, he passes along without a single decoration on his plain dress, not even a star to mark out the first consul. It is well; there can but be one Napoleon in the world, and he wants no distinction. He is followed by diplomatists of every European power, vassals, all, more or less, save England; and to England, and to her sons and daughters, are the most cherished courtesies directed. Does not that recall the present policy? By his side walks a handsome youth whom he has just been presenting to the Bavarian minister,--that envoy from a strange, wild country, little known save by the dogged valour of its mountaineers. The ruler of that land, until now an elector, has been saluted king by Napoleon the powerful. On the youth, who addresses him as _mon per_, a slight glance is allowed even from those downcast eyes which none may ever look into too full. Eugene Beauharnais, his stepson, the son of his ever-loved Josephine, has a place in that remorseless heart. "All are not evil." Is it some inkling of the parental love, is it ambition, that causes the first consul to be always accompanied by that handsome youth, fascinating as his mother, libertine as his stepfather, but destitute at once of the sensibilities of the former and of the powerful intelligence of the latter? It is on him--on Eugene Beauharnais--that the hopes of the proud Duchess of Gordon rest. Happily for her whom she would willingly have given to him as a bride, her scheme was frustrated. Such a sacrifice was incomplete.