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How fatal to the parvenu, throughout history, has been this respect for shoebuckles. Where, for instance, would the Empire of Napoleon have been, if Ney and Lannes had never sported such a thing as a coat-of-arms, and had only written their simple names on their shields, after the fashion of Desaix’s scutcheon yonder?–the bold Republican who led the crowning charge at Marengo, and sent the best blood of the Holy Roman Empire to the right-about, before the wretched misbegotten imperial heraldry was born, that was to prove so disastrous to the father of it. It has always been so. They won’t amalgamate. A country must be governed by the one principle or the other. But give, in a republic, an aristocracy ever so little chance, and it works and plots and sneaks and bullies and sneers itself into place, and you find democracy out of doors. Is it good that the aristocracy should so triumph?–that is a question that you may settle according to your own notions and taste; and permit me to say, I do not care twopence how you settle it. Large books have been written upon the subject in a variety of languages, and coming to a variety of conclusions. Great statesmen are there in our country, from Lord Londonderry down to Mr. Vincent, each in his degree maintaining his different opinion. But here, in the matter of Napoleon, is a simple fact: he founded a great, glorious, strong, potent republic, able to cope with the best aristocracies in the world, and perhaps to beat them all; he converts his republic into a monarchy, and surrounds his monarchy with what he calls aristocratic institutions; and you know what becomes of him. The people estranged, the aristocracy faithless (when did they ever pardon one who was not of themselves?)–the imperial fabric tumbles to the ground. If it teaches nothing else, my dear, it teaches one a great point of policy–namely, to stick by one’s party.

While these thoughts (and sundry others relative to the horrible cold of the place, the intense dulness of delay, the stupidity of leaving a warm bed and a breakfast in order to witness a procession that is much better performed at a theatre)–while these thoughts were passing in the mind, the church began to fill apace, and you saw that the hour of the ceremony was drawing near.

Imprimis, came men with lighted staves, and set fire to at least ten thousand wax-candles that were hanging in brilliant chandeliers in various parts of the chapel. Curtains were dropped over the upper windows as these illuminations were effected, and the church was left only to the funereal light of the spermaceti. To the right was the dome, round the cavity of which sparkling lamps were set, that designed the shape of it brilliantly against the darkness. In the midst, and where the altar used to stand, rose the catafalque. And why not? Who is God here but Napoleon? and in him the sceptics have already ceased to believe; but the people does still somewhat. He and Louis XIV. divide the worship of the place between them.

As for the catafalque, the best that I can say for it is that it is really a noble and imposing-looking edifice, with tall pillars supporting a grand dome, with innumerable escutcheons, standards, and allusions military and funereal. A great eagle of course tops the whole: tripods burning spirits of wine stand round this kind of dead man’s throne, and as we saw it (by peering over the heads of our neighbors in the front rank), it looked, in the midst of the black concave, and under the effect of half a thousand flashing cross-lights, properly grand and tall. The effect of the whole chapel, however (to speak the jargon of the painting-room), was spoiled by being CUT UP: there were too many objects for the eye to rest upon: the ten thousand wax-candles, for instance, in their numberless twinkling chandeliers, the raw tranchant colors of the new banners, wreaths, bees, N’s, and other emblems dotting the place all over, and incessantly puzzling, or rather BOTHERING the beholder.