Note 1 — HONORÉ DE BALZAC (continued 13)

This relates to the return of Napoleon's body from Saint Helena. The translator of this volume was present. The Champs Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde were lined with those statues, between which were the urns, filled with burning incense. As the catafalque (all gold, and draped with violet gauze) paused beneath the Arch, the populace fell on their knees, believing that Napoleon would rise from the dead. The remnant of the Old Guard followed him on foot. The weather was so terribly cold that fifteen hundred persons were said to have died of it; three hundred of them English.—-TR.