When their carriages were at the door, to make their visit to the _Hôpital des Invalides_, as promised the night before, the Doctor was unwilling to break the charm of his contemplations, and _Wa-ton-ye_ could not be waked, and the rest drove off in good cheer and delight. They hung their medals on their necks, suspended by their tri-coloured ribbons, the meaning of which having been explained to them, and they were soon at the mouths of the huge cannon, whose "big mouths" had "spoken so loudly" the night before.
After taking a good look at them, and getting something of their curious history, they entered that wonderful and most noble institution, an honour to the name of its founder and to the country that loves and upholds it, the _Hospital_ of _Invalids_. Nothing on earth could have struck these people as more curious and interesting (a race of warriors themselves) than this institution, with its 3800 venerable inmates, the living victims of battles, wounded, crippled, fed, and clothed, and made happy, the living evidences of the human slaughter that must have taken place in the scenes they had been through. If this scene convinced them of the destructiveness of civilized modes of warfare, it taught them an useful lesson of civilized sympathy for those who are the unfortunate victims of war and carnage.
The moral that was drawn from this day's visit was an important one to them, and I took the opportunity, and many others afterwards, to impress it upon their minds. It pleased them to hear that these old veterans, with one leg and one arm, were the very men who were chosen to come to the big guns, and fire them off, on the day of the King's fete--the same guns that they fought around, and over, when they were taking them from the enemies.
Returning from the "_Invalides_," our carriages were stopped in Place Concorde for a view of the beautiful fountains playing, which pleased and astonished them, as they do all foreigners who pass. The Egyptian obelisk column of Luxor, of seventy-two feet, in one solid piece of granite, and brought from Egypt to Paris, was shown and explained to them, and our carriage driven to the ground where the _guillotine_ had stood on which the blood of Kings and Queens had been shed, and where the father of Louis Philippe was beheaded. These extraordinary and almost incredible facts of history, and that so recent, filled their minds with amazement, and almost with incredulity. Our drive that day was continued through the broad avenue of the Champs Elysées to the _triumphal arch_ at the Barrière d'Etoile, and our view from the top of it was one of the finest they thought in the world. We were not quite as high as when we were on the tower of the York cathedral, but the scene around us was far more picturesque and enchanting.