While this ghastly tumult was scaring sleep and silence from the city close to us, we slept on, all unconscious of the cup of trembling to which we had stretched out our hand, and which had been so mercifully snatched away from us. It was only next morning, on going out to Mass, that the _concierge_ stopped us to tell the news of the attempt on the Emperor's life. And we had been vexed and felt aggrieved with the rain that drove us home, and prevented our going to stand amongst those _curieux_ in the Rue Lepelletier! Mary did not hear of it till we met at breakfast. I never shall forget the look of blank horror on her face as she listened to the account of what had happened on the very spot where we had been so bent on going. Although this attack of Orsini's comes into my narrative simply as a datum, I cannot resist making a short digression toward it. Most of my readers will remember the singular stoicism displayed by the Emperor at the moment of the explosion. One of the horses was killed under his carriage, which was violently shaken by the plunging of the terrified animals, and a splinter from one of the bombs, flashing through the window, grazed him on the temple. In the midst of the general panic and confusion of the scene, the equerry rushed forward, and, taking the Emperor by the arm, cried hurriedly: "Come out, sire! Come out!" "Let down the steps," observed his master with unruffled _sang froid_, and quietly waited till it was done before he moved. He entered the Opera amidst deafening cheers, and sat out the representation as coolly, and to all appearances with as much attention, as if nothing had occurred to disturb him, now and then quietly drawing his handkerchief across the splinter-mark on his forehead, from which the blood was oozing slightly. Next day a solemn Te Deum was celebrated at the Tuileries. The Empress wished the little prince, then a baby in arms, to be present at the thanksgiving for her own and his father's miraculous preservation. The child was carried into the Salle des Maréchaux, where the court and the Corps Diplomatique were assembled, and immediately put out his hands, clamoring for his father to take him. The Emperor took him in his arms, and the child, looking up at his face, noticed the red mark on the temple. "Papa _bobo_!"[29] he lisped, and put up his little hand to touch it. The hard, sphynx-like face struggled for a moment; but the child's touch had melted the strong man. He clasped him to his heart, and literally shook with sobs. These details, which were probably never written before, were told to me by one who was present at the attempt the previous night, and at the Te Deum Mass next day.