The old soldier, it is stated, as he sat at table, scarcely noticed the constellations of bright, black, and hazel-coloured eyes that from all directions were concentrated upon him, but, addressing himself first to his own black bottle, and then with the utmost good humour to those of his neighbours, he drank and ate--drank--swigged--reflected,--and then, as if to refresh himself, drank again, again, and again, until, according to pre-arrangement, he stood up on the tribune to re-propose the health of “LOUIS NAPOLEON,” to which--coupling the meteor now shining in its zenith with the “sun of Austerlitz,” which, though sunk for ever below the horizon, still beamed as resplendently as ever within his heart--he added, with great naïveté, “MAIS SANS OUBLIER L’AUTRE!” The French people, or rather the representatives of the French nation who were assembled, had received the consecutive orations of several of the most illustrious of their fellow-citizens with considerable marks of approbation; but when the veteran in question, who was about seventy years of age, with hair white as snow, rose to address to them a short speech that would scarcely have filled his empty wine-glass, the sight of the uniform so dear to Frenchmen--the tall bear-skin cap, the crimson feather, blue coat, red facings, red worsted epaulettes, white breast, white breeches, long black gaiters reaching over the knee, and, above all, buttons with an eagle supporting the imperial crown--created a storm of applause which it would be utterly impossible to describe. For nearly a quarter of an hour shouts and clappings of hands prevented the old warrior from opening his lips, and the applause if possible increased when the veteran, with the palm of his hand turned outwards, stiffly saluted the company in correct martial style: and yet, strange to record, at the very moment of all this military enthusiasm, so characteristic of a nation of whom it was lately very eloquently stated “that it had been its ambition to be the world’s guide and its destiny to be the world’s warning,” the French Government was not only without funds to protect public or private property, but, in fact, had nothing but the plunder of both to conciliate and feed the multitude of misguided and misguiding people who, by the ruin of commerce and by the stagnation of trade, were literally all over France starving from cold and hunger. Of their enthusiasm, therefore, as of that of the veteran standing up before them, it may truly be said or sung-- “Happy’s the soldier that lives on his pay, And spends half-a-crown out of sixpence a-day!” Having related, or rather merely repeated, this curious little anecdote, we will now endeavour to explain in what manner it applies to the subject of our chapter, namely, “_the construction of a railway_.”