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THE EUROPEAN JOURNALS
329

profound bow was the answer, and I was conducted to another room, where several gentlemen were seated writing. I let one of them know my errand, and in a moment was shown into an immense and superbly furnished apartment, and my book was ordered to be brought up. In this room I bowed to two gentlemen whom I knew to be members of the Légion d'Honneur, and walked about admiring the fine marble statues and the paintings. A gentleman soon came to me, and asked if perchance my name was Audubon? I bowed, and he replied: "Bless me, we thought that you had gone and left your portfolio; my uncle has been waiting for you twenty minutes; pray, sir, follow me." We passed through a file of bowing domestics, and a door being opened I saw the Duke coming towards me, to whom I was introduced by the nephew. Lucy, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama have furnished the finest men in the world, as regards physical beauty; I have also seen many a noble-looking Osage chief; but I do not recollect a finer-looking man, in form, deportment, and manners, than this Duc d'Orléans. He had my book brought up, and helped me to untie the strings and arrange the table, and began by saying that he felt a great pleasure in subscribing to the work of an American, for that he had been most kindly treated in the United States, and should never forget it. The portfolio was at last opened, and when I held up the plate of the Baltimore Orioles, with a nest swinging amongst the tender twigs of the yellow poplar, he said: "This surpasses all I have seen, and I am not astonished now at the eulogiums of M. Redouté." He spoke partly English, and partly French; spoke much of America, of Pittsburgh, the Ohio, New Orleans, the Mississippi, steamboats, etc., etc., and added: "You are a great nation, a wonderful nation."

The Duke promised me to write to the Emperor of Austria, King of Sweden, and other crowned heads, and asked me to write to-day to the Minister of the Interior. I