A little King of no importance--I think it was the King of Wurtemburg--was the first to risk himself among us. He was M. Paoli's first client. When at last the Queen of England, upon the advice of her physicians, decided to exchange the chill banks of the Thames for the sunny gardens of the Côte d'Azur, it was to M. Paoli that the government of the Republic intrusted the duty of doing the honours of the French territory and assuring her safety during her sojourn among us. He acquitted himself of this delicate task with such success as immediately gained the confidence of the venerable Queen to such an extent that she desired her ambassador to write to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs that thenceforth she wished that no other functionary than M. Paoli should watch over her during her visits to France. Each year, therefore, she found him faithful to his charge, awaiting her arrival either at Cherbourg or Calais. From this time, M. Paoli became the indispensable personage for all the sovereigns and princes who undertook to visit our country, and therefore indispensable to the Republican government, who found in M. Paoli a perfect intermediary between itself and them. During twenty-five years he successively escorted to our watering places and seashore resorts fifteen emperors or kings, half a dozen empresses and queens, and countless numbers of princes of the blood, grand dukes and other princely globe trotters. He was admitted to their confidences, understood their impressions. To most of them, who continually saw our ministers appear and disappear, and who each time they came received the homage of new personages, M. Paoli personified the Republic which, with whatever petty quarrels and changes of officials, was always calm and smiling to its guests in the drawing-room. France, indeed, profited by the precious friendship which M. Paoli won for himself. "He is a model functionary, he has made the Republic beloved by Kings," exclaimed M. Félix Faure one day in my presence. And I remember another striking reflection of the regretted President. As he came out of the hotel of the Empress of Austria where he had been visiting at Cap Martin, some one asked him what had been the subject of his interview with the sovereign. "The Empress, gentlemen, spoke of nothing except of M. Paoli, whose courtesy and tact she praised without reserve." What tribute could have been more flattering, indeed, than the invitation which he received from Queen Victoria to be present at her jubilee, and to accept the hospitality of Buckingham Palace? And after her death the royal family begged him to be present at her obsequies, and during all the sad solemnities treated him as a faithful and devoted friend.