"Monsieur, it is ten years since I accomplished, put in practice, and evoked practical results from this international communication, which your two peoples have failed to establish, in spite of all their money, their great ships, and the united wisdom of their _savans_. I am a Frenchman, Monsieur,--and, you know, France is the congenial soil of Science. In that country, where they laugh ever and _se jouent de tout_, Science is sacred;--the Academy has even _pas_ of the army; honors there are higher prized than the very wreaths of glory. Among the votaries of Science in France, César Prévost was the humblest,--_serviteur, Monsieur._ Nevertheless, though my place was only in the outermost porch of the temple, I was a faithful, devoted, self-sacrificing worshipper of the goddess; and therefore, because earnest fidelity has ever its crown of reward, it happened to me to make a grand discovery,--a discovery more momentous, it may be, than that of gunpowder or the telescope,--ten million hundred times more worth than the vaunted great achievement of M. le Professeur Morse. Not that its whole import came to me at once. No, Monsieur, it is full twenty years now since the first light of it glimmered upon César Prévost's mind, and he gave ten years of his life to it--ten faithful years--before it was perfect to his satisfaction. Ah, Monsieur, and 'tis more than one year now that I have been what you see me, in consequence of it. _Eh, bien!_ I shall die so,--rightly,--but my discovery shall live forever.