After looking at the column of the Place Vendôme and recalling these lines of Barbier, I was ready for a visit to the tomb of Napoleon. The poet's curse had helped me to explain the painter's frenzy against the bronze record of his achievements and the image at its summit. But I forgot them both as I stood under the dome of the Invalides, and looked upon the massive receptacle which holds the dust of the imperial exile. Two things, at least, Napoleon accomplished: he opened the way for ability of all kinds, and he dealt the death-blow to the divine right of kings and all the abuses which clung to that superstition. If I brought nothing else away from my visit to his mausoleum, I left it impressed with what a man can be when fully equipped by nature, and placed in circumstances where his forces can have full play. "How infinite in faculty! ... in apprehension how like a god!" Such were my reflections; very much, I suppose, like those of the average visitor, and too obviously having nothing to require contradiction or comment. Paris as seen by the morning sun of three or four and twenty and Paris in the twilight of the superfluous decade cannot be expected to look exactly alike. I well remember my first breakfast at a Parisian café in the spring of 1833. It was in the Place de la Bourse, on a beautiful sunshiny morning. The coffee was nectar, the _flute_ was ambrosia, the _brioche_ was more than good enough for the Olympians. Such an experience could not repeat itself fifty years later. The first restaurant at which we dined was in the Palais Royal. The place was hot enough to cook an egg. Nothing was very excellent nor very bad; the wine was not so good as they gave us at our hotel in London; the enchanter had not waved his wand over our repast, as he did over my earlier one in the Place de la Bourse, and I had not the slightest desire to pay the garçon thrice his fee on the score of cherished associations. We dined at our hotel on some days, at different restaurants on others. One day we dined, and dined well, at the old Café Anglais, famous in my earlier times for its turbot. Another day we took our dinner at a very celebrated restaurant on the boulevard. One sauce which was served us was a gastronomic symphony, the harmonies of which were new to me and pleasing. But I remember little else of superior excellence. The garçon pocketed the franc I gave him with the air of having expected a napoleon. Into the mysteries of a lady's shopping in Paris I would not venture to inquire. But A---- and I strolled together through the Palais Royal in the evening, and amused ourselves by staring at the glittering windows without being severely tempted. Bond Street had exhausted our susceptibility to the shop-window seduction, and the napoleons did not burn in the pockets where the sovereigns had had time to cool.