Helena; nay,
promised a pension to an old soldier who had been for many years
the guardian of the imperial tomb, and went so far as to take into
consideration the petition of a certain lodging-house keeper, who prayed
for a compensation for the loss which the removal of the Emperor's body
would occasion to her. And although it was not to be expected that the
great French nation should forego its natural desire of recovering the
remains of a hero so dear to it for the sake of the individual interest
of the landlady in question, it must have been satisfactory to her to
find, that the peculiarity of her position was so delicately appreciated
by the august Prince who commanded the expedition, and carried away with
him animae dimidium suae--the half of the genteel independence which
she derived from the situation of her hotel. In a word, politeness and
friendship could not be carried farther. The Prince's realm and the
landlady's were bound together by the closest ties of amity. M. Thiers
was Minister of France, the great patron of the English alliance.
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