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From that moment a moment that was marked in his life, for even to advanced old age he still talked of the "report he had had the honor of making to the Council-general of the Seine" la Peyrade went down considerably in his estimation; he felt then that he could do very well without the barrister, and this thought of emancipation was strengthened by another happiness which came to him at almost the same time.
He could feel her licking his hands and hear her barking. It was necessary to call in a physician. At last he recovered, and toward the 2nd of June his employers took him to their estate at Biesard, near Rouen. There again he was near the Seine. He began to take baths. Each morning he would go down with the groom and they would swim across the river.
The French never drink this water without mixing in it a proportion of sugar, and then call it eau sucré, which is often called for at the coffee-houses. Most houses have reservoirs of sand for filtering the water before it is used for drinking; but those who have been accustomed to the luxury of good water, cannot be soon reconciled to that of the Seine.
Thus was fulfilled the last wish of the conqueror of the world: "I desire that my remains may rest on the banks of the Seine." The stranger leaves Paris with regret, and is consoled only by the thought that he is on his way to sunny Italy. The train carries him eastwards, and he looks through the window at the hills and plains of Champagne, the home of sparkling wine.
It was a good while since his impressions had been so favourable to the city by the Seine; a good while at all events since they had ministered so to excitement, to exhilaration, to ambition, even to a restlessness that was not prevented from being agreeable by the excess of agitation in it.
Near to the Barrière d'Enfer is the entrance to the Catacombs, containing the bones of 3,000,000 persons which are all systematically arranged so as to have the most extraordinary effect; they are formed into galleries of an immense length, and occupy a considerable space of ground under a great portion of Paris, on the south side of the Seine; but now they cease to be such objects of interest as they formerly were, as the public are not now permitted to visit them; they were formerly large quarries from which the stone was drawn for building most part of ancient Paris, and when it was decided to clear many of the cemeteries within the capital, the bones were placed in these quarries in 1784, and the operation of piling them as they now are was effected in 1810.
Not only was the danger of attack from the English and Burgundian soldiers a great and a constant one, but the winter, which had been exceptionally wet, had flooded all the rivers. Five of these had to be crossed namely, the Marne, the Aube, the Seine, the Yonne, and the Loire: and most of the bridges and fords of these rivers were strictly guarded by the enemy.
Mr Lathrope was having a spirited contest with the first-mate over the chequer-board that he had assisted in making; Kate was reading out of a little pocket Bible to the poor captain as he lay back in his cot; while the others, grouped around, were talking and otherwise amusing themselves some of the men knitting a net, which it was intended to use as a seine for catching fish some day when finished, and the steward assisting Snowball in cutting up some cabbage which they were going to pickle and lay by for emergencies when Mr Meldrum, after a preliminary "hem," to attract their attention, addressed the little gathering.
If the Germans concentrated to move against their front the French reserve armies could assemble west of the Seine, move forward and attack the German invading columns in flank.
Germain-des-Pres, that, in the year 885, the Swedes, Danes, and Normans, to the number of forty-five thousand men, came to lay siege to Paris, with seven hundred sail of ships, exclusively of the smaller craft, so that, according to this historian, who was an eye-witness of the fact, the river Seine was covered with their vessels for the space of two leagues.
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