“In accordance with your request I send you the following brief particulars of the carriage used by the Emperor Napoleon at St. Helena. I purchased it in 1848, at that island, of Major Charles Sampson, an officer who had lived highly respected there for more than fifty years, and who gave me the following certificate: “‘Received from Mr. John Blofeld, for Bonaparte’s old carriage, the first used by him on the Island of St. Helena. (Here follows the mount paid.)--(MAJOR) C. SAMPSON.’ “In 1850 I went to Paris, where I showed it to General Count Montholon and Count Emanuel de las Cases; those gentlemen immediately recognised it, and both said they had frequently rode in it with the Emperor, and they most kindly gave me the following certificates, which, as you purchased the carriage, I enclose. General Montholon informed me that the Emperor always used it, drawn by four horses, ridden by two postilions, with the head of the carriage down. “Certificates: “‘I hereby certify that the carriage shown to me at Paris by Mr. John Blofeld is the actual carriage used by the Emperor Napoleon at the Island of St. Helena.--(GENERAL) MONTHOLON.’ “‘I hereby certify that the carriage shown to me by Mr. John Blofeld, and purchased by him of Major C. Sampson, of St. Helena, is the actual carriage used by the Emperor Napoleon at that island.--EMANUEL DE LAS CASES.’ “I remain, Dear Sirs, “Yours faithfully, “JOHN BLOFELD. “Messrs. Joseph and Francis Tussaud, “London, Jan. 8, 1851.” [Illustration: THORWALDSEN’S CELEBRATED BUST OF THE GREAT NAPOLEON One of the treasured possessions of Madame Tussaud’s.] CHAPTER XVII Father Mathew sits for his model--Tsar Nicholas I takes a fancy to Voltaire’s chair--A replica sent to him--The Rev. Peter McKenzie’s exorcism. [Illustration: FATHER MATHEW, “THE NOBLE PRIEST OF CORK” A great temperance leader whose striking resemblance to Napoleon I. caused an odd confusion in the Museum when in renovating the wax figures a servant put the head of Father Mathew on the shoulders of the deposed Emperor.] One of the greatest of all temperance reformers was Father Mathew, “the Noble Priest of Cork,” who persuaded sixty thousand people in London alone to become teetotallers and to take a pledge to that effect. The apostle of temperance was induced to come to London in the early forties to give a series of lectures.