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LIMITED 1899 202i; Klltt■^•Y t ii .1 \- si CI .•1(1 til. tli.'i TI, lair I ha lati lion Cor A osit; inde DROSS. CHAPTER I. MUBIlliOOMS. " La ctli'brili' est comme le feu, (jui brule dc pris et illumine dc loin." Uiuler a j^lorious sky, in the year 1869, Talis j^ailicied to rejoice in the centenary of the hirth of tlie First Napoleon. A gather- ing this of nuishrooni nohiUty, soUhery, and diplomacy, to celel)rate tlie hnndre(Uh anni- versary of the greatest nuishrooni that ever sprang to life in tlie hot-bed of internecine strife. Adventnrers all." said John Turner, the great Paris hanker, with whom 1 was in the C lunch of the invalides; "and yonder," he added, indicating the Third Napoleon, " is the cleverest." We had i)nshed our way into the gorgeous church, and now rubbed elbows with some that wore epaulettes on j)eaceful shoulders. There were ladies present, too. ]3id not the fair beings contribute to the rise and fall of that marvellous Second Kmpire? Represen- tatives of almost every luiropean pcjwer paid homage that day to the memory of a little Corsican officer of artillery. As for me, I went from motives of curi- osity, as, no doubt, went many others, if indeed all had so good a call. In my neigh- MUSHROOMS. bourhood, for instance, stood a stout gentle- man in court uniform, who wept aloud when- ever the organ permitted his grief to l)e audible. '* Who is that?" 1 inquired of my com- panion. "A Legitimist, who would perhaps accept a Nai)oleonic post," repHed John Turner, in his stout and simple way. "And is he weeping because the man who was born a hundred years ago is^dead?" *' No! lie is weeping because that man's nephew may perchance, note his emotion." One could never tell how dense or how acute John Turner really was. His round, fat face was always innnobile and lleshy — no wrinkle, no movement of lip or eyelid ever gave the cue to his inmost thought. He was always good-natured and indilTerent — a middle-aged bachelor who had found life not hollow', but full — of food. Nature having given me long legs (where- with to give the slip to my responsi])ilities, and also to the bailiffs, as many of my female relatives have enjoyed saying), 1 could look over the heads of the n:ajority of people pre- sent, and so saw the Emperor Napoleon 111. for the first time in my life. The mind is, after all, a smaller thing than those who deny the existence of that which is beyond their comprehension would have us believe. At that moment 1 forgot to think of all that lay MUSHROOMS. les, ]ile lok c- lll. is. jny leir At lay l)cliiti(l those (lull, extinj^iiishcd eyes. 1 for- got tliat this was a maker of history, and one who will be placed by chroniclers, writing; in the calm of the twentieth century, only sec- ond to his i^reater imcle amonj^ remarkable I'renchmen, and merely wondered whether Napoleon III. perceived the somewhat ob- trusive emotion of my neighbor in the court uniform. But a keener observer than myself coidd scarce have discerned the information on the still, pale features of the Kmperor, who, in- deed, in his implacability always reminded me more of my own countrymen than of the I'rench. The service was procecdinj^^ with that ciuming rise and fall of voice and music which. I take it. has won not a few emotional souls back, to the Mother Church. Suddenly John Turner chuckled in a way that fat pe(j- ple have. ** Laughing at your d — d piano-case," he explained. I had told him shortly before how I had boarded the Calais boat at Dover in the form and semblance of a piano, snui^-ly housed in one of Messrs. ■ l^rard's cases, while my ser- vant cnjiajL;ed in pleasant converse on the quay the bailiff who had been set to watch for me: this, while they were actually slin.c^- injT^ me on board. The picture of the sur- prise of my fellow-passenc^crs when T.oomer .q:ravely unscrewed me and I emerc^ed from MUSHROOMS. my travclHnj^^-carria^^c in niid-clianiK'l had pleased John Turner vastly. Indeed, he told the story to the end of his days, and even hrou^dit that end within hail at times hy an over-indul^enee in apopletie mirth. lie ehuekled at it now in the midst of this solenni service. Hut I, more easily moved perhai)s by outward show and pomp, could only think of our surroundin}:i:s. The excitement of i^iv- Wfji; my creditors the sli|) was a thinp^ of the past; for those were rapid days, and I no lai;- j^ard, as many look care to tell me, on the heel of the flyinj^ moment. The ceremony in which we were taking part was indeed strange enouiih to rivet the attention of any who witnessed it — strani^a*, I take it, as any historical scene of a century that saw the rise and fall of Xapoleon I. Stranpce beyond belief, that this dynasty should arise from ashes as cold as those that Europe heaped on St. Helena's dead, to cele- l)rate the birth of its founder! Who would have dared to prophecy fifty years earlier that a second Kmi^eror should some day sit upon the throne of France? Who would have ventured to foretell that this capricious people, loathing as they did in 1815 the naine of Bonaparte, should one day choose by universal sufTrap^e another of that family to rule over them? Few of those assembled in the u^reat tomb were of devout enough mind to take much I f' r. I''.' ua is wii i'a in I MUSHROOMS. c- cr lis in )nc I nib Licb licc