Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/104

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96
PLACES AND PEOPLE ABROAD.

de Mail; and in 1794 as a lodger at No. 10 Rue de la Michandère. From this he goes to the Hotel Mirabeau, Rue du Dauphin, where he resided when he defeated his enemies on the l3th Vendemaire. The Hotel de la Colonade, Rue Neuve des Capuchins, is his next residence, and where he was married to Josephine. From this hotel he removed to his wife's dwelling in the Rue Chanteriene, No. 52. In 1796 the young general started for Italy, where his conquests paved the way for the ever-memorable 18th Brumaire, that made him Dictator of France. Napoleon was too great now to be satisfied with private dwellings, and we next trace him to the Elysee, St. Cloud, Versailles, the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and, finally, came his decline, which I need not relate to you.

After visiting the Gobelins, passing through its many rooms, seeing here and there a half-finished piece of tapestry, and meeting a number of the members of the late Peace Congress, who, like myself, had remained behind to see more of the beauties of the French capital than could be seen during the Convention week, I accepted an invitation to dine with a German gentleman at the Palais Royal, and was soon revelling amid the luxuries of the table. I was glad that I had gone to the Palais Royal, for here I had the honor of an introduction to M. Beranger, the poet; and, although I had to converse with him through an interpreter, I enjoyed his company very much. "The people's poet," as he is called, is apparently about seventy years of age, bald on the top of the head, and rather corpulent, but of active