LONDON: JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 & 75, PICCADILLY.

[_All Rights Reserved._]




PREFACE.


The story of the Cockaynes was written some years ago,--in the days when
Paris was at her best and brightest; and the English quarter was
crowded; and the Emperor was at St. Cloud; and France appeared destined
to become the wealthiest and strongest country in the world.

Where the Cockaynes carried their guide-books and opera-glasses, and
fell into raptures at every footstep, there are dismal ruins now. The
Vendôme Column is a stump, wreathed with a gigantic _immortelle_, and
capped with the tri-color. The Hall of the Marshals is a black hole.
Those noble rooms in which the first magistrate of the city of
Boulevards gave welcome to crowds of English guests, are destroyed. In
the name of Liberty some of the most precious art-work of modern days
has been fired. The Communists' defiling fingers have passed over the
canvas of Ingrès. Auber and Dumas have gone from the scene in the
saddest hour of their country's history. The Anglo-French alliance--that
surest rock of enduring peace--has been rent asunder, through the
timorous hesitation of English ministers, and the hardly disguised