Once in September, and again in the beginning of October, he rode out, as his physicians desired him to take exercise; but he was so weak, that he was obliged to return in his carriage. He ceased to digest; his debility increased. Shivering fits came on, which extended even to the extremities; hot towels applied to the feet gave him some relief. He suffered from these cold fits to the last hour of his life. As he could no longer either

in an open carriage at a foot

walk or ride, he took several drives pace, but without gaining strength. He never took off his dressing-gown. His stomach rejected food, and at the end of the year he was forced to give up meat; he lived upon jellies and soups. For some time he ate scarcely any thing, and drank only a little pure wine, hoping thus to support nature without fatiguing the digestion; but the vomiting continued, and he returned to soups and jellies. The remedies and tonics which were tried produced little effect. His body grew weaker every day, but his mind retained its strength.

He liked reading and conversation; he did not dictate much, although he did so from time to time up to the last days of his life. He felt that his end was approaching, and he frequently recited the passage from 'Zaïre' which finishes with this line:—

A revoir Paris je ne dois plus prétendre.

Nevertheless the hope of leaving this dreadful country often presented itself to his imagination; some newspaper articles and false reports excited our expectations. We sometimes fancied that we were on the eve of starting for America; we read travels, we made plans, we arrived at your house, we wandered over that immense country, where alone we might hope to enjoy liberty. Vain hopes! vain projects! which only made us doubly feel our misfortunes.

They could not have been borne with more serenity and courage, I might almost add gaiety. He often said to us in the evening, “Where shall we go? to the Théâtre Français, or to the Opera?" And then he would read a tragedy by Corneille, Voltaire, or Racine; an opera of Quinault's or one of Molière's comedies. His strong mind and powerful character were perhaps even more

remarkable than on that larger theatre where he eclipsed all that is brightest in ancient and in modern history. He often seemed to forget what he had been. I was never tired of admiring his philosophy and courage, the good sense and the fortitude which raised him above misfortune.

At times, however, sad regrets and recollections of what he had done, contrasted with what he might have done, presented themselves. He talked of the past with perfect frankness; persuaded that on the whole he had done what he was required to do, and not sharing the strange and contradictory opinions which we hear expressed every day on events which are not understood by the speakers. If the conversation took a melancholy turn, he soon changed it; he liked to talk of Corsica, of his old uncle Lucien, of his youth, of you, and of all the rest of the family.

Towards the middle of March fever came on. From that time he scarcely left his bed, except for about half an hour in the day; he seldom had the strength to shave. He now, for the first time, became extremely thin. The fits of vomiting became more frequent. He then questioned the physicians on the conformation of the stomach, and about a fortnight before his death he had pretty nearly guessed that he was dying of cancer. He was read to almost every day, and dictated a few days before his decease. He often talked naturally as to the probable mode of his death; but when he became aware that it was approaching, he left off speaking on the subject. He thought much about you and your children. To his last moments he was kind and affectionate to us all; he did not appear to suffer so much as might have been expected from the cause of his death. When we questioned him, he said that he suffered a little, but that he could bear it. His memory declined during the last five or six days; his deep sighs, and his exclamations from time to time, made us think that he was in great pain. He looked at us with the penetrating glance which you know so well; we tried to dissimulate, but he was so used to read our faces that no doubt he frequently discovered our anxiety. He felt too clearly the gradual decline of his faculties not to be aware of his state.

For the last two hours he neither spoke nor moved; the only

sound was his difficult breathing, which gradually but regularly decreased; his pulse ceased; and so died, surrounded only by a few servants, the man who had dictated laws to the world, and whose life should have been preserved for the sake of the happiness and glory of our sorrowing country.

Forgive, Prince, a hurried letter, which tells you so little, when you wish to know so much, but I should never end if I attempted to tell all.

You are so far off, that I know not when I shall have the honour of seeing you again. I must not omit to say that the Emperor was most anxious that his correspondence with the different sovereigns of Europe should be printed; he repeated this to us several times. In his will the Emperor expressed a wish that his remains should be buried in France; however, in the last days of his life he ordered me, if there was any difficulty about it, to lay him by the side of the fountain whose waters he had so long drank.

APPENDIX.

PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH.

New York, April 22, 1887.

My dear Uncle,-On my arrival in the United States I hoped to find a letter from you. I own that your displeasure grieved me; knowing, as I do, your good sense and your kindness, it surprised me. Indeed, uncle, my conduct must have been strangely misrepresented to you before you could have been induced to repel as enemies the men who sacrificed themselves for the empire. If, having succeeded at Strasbourg (and I very nearly did so), I had marched on Paris, followed by a people fascinated by the recollections of the empire, and, arriving in the capital as Pretender, I had seized the government, then to disavow me and to break with me might have been noble and magnanimous! But when I attempt one of the bold enterprises which alone could bring back what twenty years of peace have effaced; when I offer to it the sacrifice of my life, persuaded that even my death would be of use to our cause; when against my will I escape from the bayonet and the scaffold to a foreign shore, I find there only contempt and disdain on the part of my family!

If my respect and esteem for you were less sincere I should not be so sensitive, for I venture to say that the public will never allow that there can be a schism between us. None will believe that you repudiate your nephew because he has perilled his life for your cause; no one will believe that you can treat as enemies men who have exposed their lives and their fortunes to replace the eagle on our standards; any more than it would have been believed that VOL. II.-16*