Here we
heard, for the first time in our lives, the nightingale's song; a
gurgling warble, with an occasional crescendo, _a la_ Jenny Lind.
At five we dined; took carriage at seven, cars at nine, and arrived in
Paris at ten.
Friday, June 17. At twelve o'clock I started for Versailles to visit
the camp at Sartory, where I understood the emperor was to review the
troops.
At Versailles I mounted the top of an omnibus with two Parisian
gentlemen. As I opened my umbrella one of them complimented me on
having it. I replied that it was quite a necessary of life. He
answered, and we were soon quite chatty. I inquired about the camp at
Sartory, and whether the emperor was to be there. He said he had heard
so.
He then asked me if we had not a camp near London, showing that he
took me for an Englishman. I replied that there was a camp there,
though I had not seen it, and that I was an American. In reply he
congratulated me that the Americans were far ahead of the English.
I complimented him then in turn on Versailles and its galleries, and
told him there was not a nation on earth that had such monuments of
its own history and greatness.
