Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/266

228 for providing a home for old or mutilated or infirm soldiers who had shed their blood for their country. There is accommodation for 5,000 soldiers, but the number who live there now does not probably exceed 500. There are a Court of Honour, a Library, a Council Chamber, a Museum of artillery and an Armoury here, but the most interesting spot is of course the tomb of Napoleon the Great. The visitor as soon as he enters the mausoleum is struck with the scene. Before him is a superb altar supported by twisted marble pillars standing on a marble platform and surrounded by a marble balustrade—and the whole lighted by golden light streaming through stained windows. Around him are chapels containing monuments of Turenne and other eminent men. Above him is the lofty dome rising high in the air whose gilded outside is visible for miles round. And below him, just under the dome, is a circular crypt of polished granite nearly 40 yards in circumference, and seven yards deep. In this crypt,—surrounded by marble statues and the very flags which he captured in battles, and on a marble pavement on which are recorded in stone his principal victories, lies Napoleon Bonaparte in a sarcophagus of prophyryporphyry [sic]. "Everything around seems to betoken the final resting place of one of the greatest men whom the world has ever produced. Lofty, spacious and majestic, there is an air of repose and tranquillity which cannot fail to impress the least susceptible mind."

Close to this place, and further to the east is the beautiful modern Church St. Clotilde. At some distance to the north of this Church and on the banks of the