The body was now placed in a new leaden coffin or sarcophagus, sent out from France for the purpose, and conveyed with appropriate ceremonies on board a French man-of-war, which immediately sailed for Cherbourg. Great preparations were made in France for its reception. On the arrival of the ship at Cherbourg, a steamboat was ready to convey it up the Seine to Paris. A great number of steamboats and vessels of all sorts were collected together, forming a numerous fleet, under convoy of which the corpse was transported up the river, stopping occasionally at the cities and towns on the way, to allow the inhabitants the opportunity of gratifying their curiosity and displaying their enthusiasm, by paying homage to the remains of the great soldier and chieftain of the French empire. The crowds that assembled all along the banks of the river were immense. The military turned out by hundreds and thousands. All sorts of pageantry, exhibition, and pompous show--consisting of triumphal arches, pyramids, bridges, columns, and other fanciful and imposing devices--contributed to give effect to the solemnities. On the fourteenth of December, 1840, the procession reached St. Germain, a place within a few miles of Paris. The crowd of spectators which had thronged to the spot from Paris was so immense, that it was impossible to proceed and land the body till the middle of the next day. Two battalions of troops were stationed on the banks of the river; and the stream was covered with vessels decked with laurels and wreaths of _immortelles_, a bright, unfading, yellow flower, very much in use among the French on funeral occasions. At the great bridge of Neuilly, three or four miles from Paris, an immense rostral column had been prepared, surmounted by a ball or globe, representing the world, and six feet in diameter. This was crowned by a huge eagle; but owing to the intense cold of the weather, the design was not wholly completed. On the base of this column was the following inscription, containing the last request of Napoleon: “_I wish my ashes to repose on the banks of the Seine_.” A wharf had been built at this place for the express purpose of landing the coffin, and here the body of Napoleon first touched the soil of France. At the extremity of the wharf a Grecian temple, one hundred feet in height, was erected; and at the end of the bridge of Neuilly was a colossal statue of the Empress Josephine.