Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/13

 an annoying delay follows. It recalls Marseilles. Those Marseillaise make Marseillaise hymns, and Marseilles vests, and Marseilles soap for all the world; but they never sing their hymns, or wear their vests, or wash with their soap themselves.

We have learned to go through the lingering routine of the table d'hote with patience, with serenity, with satisfaction. We take soup; then wait a few minutes for the fish; a few minutes more and the plates are changed and

strange fashion of telling a perfectly straight story till you get to the "nub" of it, and then a word drops in that no man can translate, and that story is ruined.

Tonnere, venerable Sens, Melun, Fontainbleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we swept, always noting the ab-

By Lyons and the Saone (where we saw the lady of Lyons and thought little of her comeliness); by Villa Franca,

sence of foul ditches, broken fences, cow-lots, unpainted houses and mud; and always noting, as well, the presence the roast beef comes; another change, of cleanliness, grace, taste in adorning and we take peas; change again and and beautifying, even to the disposition take lentils; changeand take snail-pat- of a tree or the turning of a hedge; the ties (I prefer grasshoppers); change and marvel of roads in perfect repair, void of take roast chicken and salad; then ruts and guiltless of even an inequality strawberry pie and ice cream; then of surface; we bowied along, hour after green figs, pears, oranges, green al- hour, that brilliant summer day, and as monds, etc.; finally, coffee. Wine with nightfall approached we entered a wil- every course, of course, being in France. derness of odorous flowers and shrub- With such a cargo on board, digestion bery, sped through it, and then, excited, is a slow process, and we must sit long delighted, and half persuaded that we in the cool chambers and smoke-and were only the sport of a beautiful dream, read French newspapers which have a lo, we stood in magnificent Paris ! HIGH NOON OF THE EMPIRE. HE summer of 1864, and thence- full possession of the Imperial party. forward until the spring of the All the large towns south of San Luis succeeding year, may be called the high Potosi, including the capital, Leon, noon of the Mexican Empire. Within Guadalajara, Puebla, Querétaro, Guana- that period the European powers, not juato and Jalapa, and all the fortified even excepting the little German prin- seaports giving access to the interior on cipalities, had formally recognized and both sides of the continent, had been sent their embassadors to the new- surrendered, most of them peaceably, to born nation of the West. The United the Imperial forces. The contest had States alone held menacingly aloof, been for the moment abandoned. The and continued earnestly to remonstrate Empire was everywhere triumphant. Ju- against the Imperial institution lodged arez, with a handful of guerrillas had upon their southern frontier. Marshal withdrawn into the confines of Sonora, Bazaine had returned from the conquest ready upon an emergency to cross for of Oaxaca, the last Liberal stronghold to safety into the United States; while the southward. The great continental Colonel Garnier with some two thous- routes, connecting the central upland and tirailleurs and Turcos was far on plateaux with the two oceans, were in the march to hunt the Liberal Mexican