Note 131 — 1854-1856.

The first time the Emperor visited the portion of the gallery allotted to Great Britain, he condescended to scan the survey contributions. As he approached the compartment, sergeant Jenkins saluted him. In return the Emperor took off his hat and bowed; and, as if to make the sergeant feel perfectly at home in his presence, smiled and seemed in delightful humour. After glancing at the six-inch map of Edinburgh, over which was written in conspicuous letters, “Ordnance survey of Scotland,” His Majesty exclaimed, “Ordnance survey of Scotland! but where is the map of England?” Jenkins explained that he had several specimens of the one-inch map of England, and invited the illustrious Monarch to inspect them. “O! certainly;” and His Majesty graciously accompanied the sergeant to the interior of the little court taken up by the survey specimens, where, in a measure, His Majesty was isolated from the crowd, which, with straining curiosity and awe, followed the imperial footsteps. When examining the one-inch map of North Wales, the Emperor traced his finger over the neighbourhood of Snowdon, and observed, “the shading of the hills is beautifully executed.” The sergeant then directed the Emperor’s attention to the plan of St. Andrews on the five-feet scale—a map very much commended for its finish by all the eminent engineers who had examined it. His Majesty appeared highly pleased with it, and then succeeded a string of questions which the sergeant—a stranger to the parasitical language of the courtier—answered with the honest pertinence and refinement of a man of good common sense. Among the interrogatories was one in which the Emperor enquired,—“Has the whole of England been surveyed on the six-inch scale?” In looking at the great theodolite, the Emperor evinced unequivocal interest; more so, when the sergeant informed him it had been in use above sixty years, and had operated on the summits of the highest mountains and most of the important trigonometrical stations in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Of its action, adjustment, and peculiarities the Emperor asked several questions, and called a scientific attendant, to whom His Majesty explained, in French, what the sergeant had communicated to him. The Emperor then examined the models of Arthur’s seat and the Merrick hills, and also that of the zenith sector, with all of which His Majesty was well satisfied. Surrounded by a vast assembly, with heads uncovered and in breathless admiration of the magnanimity of the incident, thus was passed an interview of about a quarter of an hour, between the Emperor of the French and a British soldier!