CHAPTER XVII

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Queen Victoria in Paris -- The beginning of the era of middle-class excursions -- English visitors before that -- The British tourist of 1855 -- The real revenge of Waterloo -- The Englishman's French and the Frenchman's English -- The opening of the Exhibition -- The lord mayor and aldermen in Paris -- The King of Portugal -- All these considered so much "small fry" -- Napoleon III. goes to Boulogne to welcome the Queen -- The royal yacht is delayed -- The French hotel proprietor the greatest artist in fleecing -- The Italian, the Swiss, the German, mere bunglers in comparison -- Napoleon III. before the arrival of the Queen -- Pondering the past -- Arrival of the Queen -- The Queen lands, followed by Prince Albert and the royal children -- The Emperor rides by the side of her carriage -- Comments on the population -- An old salt on the situation -- An old soldier's retort -- The general feeling -- Arrival in Paris -- The Parisians' reception of the Queen -- A description of the route -- The apartments of the Queen at St. Cloud -- How the Queen spent Sunday -- Visits the art section of the Exhibition on Monday -- Ingres and Horace Vernet presented to her -- Frenchmen's ignorance of English art in those days -- English and French art critics -- The Queen takes a carriage drive through Paris -- Not a single cry of "Vive l'Angleterre!" a great many of "Vive la Reine" -- England making a cats-paw of France -- Reception at the Elysee-Bourbon -- "Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr" at St. Cloud -- Alexandre Dumas would have liked to see the Queen -- Visit to Versailles -- State-performances at the Opera -- Ball at the Hotel de Ville -- The Queen's dancing -- Canrobert on "the Queen's dancing and her soldiers' fighting" -- Another visit to the Exhibition -- Beranger misses seeing the Queen -- "I am not going to see the Queen, but the woman" -- A review in the Champ-de-Mars -- A visit to Napoleon's tomb -- Jerome's absence on the plea of illness -- Marshal Vaillant's reply to the Emperor when the latter invites him to take Jerome's place -- His comments on the receptions given by the Emperor to foreign sovereigns -- Fetes at Versailles -- Homeward 336

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