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CHAPTER XXII.

ON THE CONTINENT.

General Grant arrived at Brussels, Belgium, at six o'clock on the evening of July 6, and proceeded to the Bellevue Hotel. No official reception was given him, as it was understood that he was traveling incognito. Within an hour of his arrival, an aide-de-camp of King Leopold visited the General, conveying from his royal master an invitation to dinner, and placing at his disposal his aides and the carriage of state. In the evening General Grant dined with ex-Minister Sanford. Several Belgian functionaries were in attendance at the board.

On the 8th, General Grant dined with the King and royal family; all the high officials of state and foreign ministers were present. King Leopold took Mrs. Grant to dinner, and the ex-President had the honor of escorting the Queen. On Sunday the King paid the General a visit, a step which is considered by the Belgians as being a great honor, as it is entirely out of the usual course. The General and Mrs. Grant visited the King and Queen in the afternoon. On Monday morning all the foreign ministers in Brussels called on the General, previous to his departure. The King's aide-de-camp and members of the American legation accompanied the party to the railway station. During General Grant's stay he was treated with the greatest distinction.

On the 9th, General Grant arrived at Cologne, and was received at the railway station by the American Consul,

President of Police, and the civil and military governors of the city, the Emperor having commanded that every attention should be paid to their honored guest. At Cologne the General visited several churches and the cathedral, and made an excursion over the suspension bridge to Deutz, returning by the bridge of boats. In the evening he was serenaded at the Hotel du Nord, by a military band.

On the roth, he left Cologne, and proceeded up the river Rhine, stopping at Bingen, Coblentz and Weisbaden, reaching Frankfort on the 12th, where a grand reception was given him at the Palmer-garten; the burgomaster presided, and one hundred and twenty guests were present. This included all the prominent officials of the town, officers of the garrison, and leading citizens. The banquet hall was beautifully illuminated and decorated. After the toasts to the Emperor and President Hayes had been drunk and duly responded to, Henry Seligman, the banker, proposed the health of General Grant. Mr. Seligman, in giving the toast, made a few appropriate remarks, in the course of which he said that the General was universally honored and esteemed. General Grant, in reply, thanked the city of Frankfort for the confidence it placed in the Union during the late civil war. He concluded by drinking to the wel fare and prosperity of the city. At the conclusion of this short speech, the General was given a magnificent ovation. The guests rose to their feet and cheered lustily, and the crowd outside, numbering six thousand people, caught up the cheer, and were enthusiastic in their demonstrations of welcome.

After the conclusion of the banquet, a grand ball was given, at which the elite of the city was present. Jesse Grant opened the ball with an American lady.

On the following day, General Grant visited Hamburg, and held a reception, the chief burgomaster presenting the guests. A grand concert was given in the grounds of the

zoological garden afterward, which was attended by many thousands of people.

On the 16th, General Grant spent several days in the immediate vicinity of Lucerne and Interlaken, Switzerland, whence he made excursions to the mountains in the vicinity. On the 24th, we find him at Berne, Switzerland, where he was received by the President of the Swiss Confederation. On the 27th, he was at Geneva, where he laid the corner stone of a new American Protestant church in that city. Large crowds were present, and hundreds of American flags were displayed from the windows of citizens' houses. The authorities of the city, and also the English and American clergymen of Geneva, were present. Speeches complimentary to General Grant were made by M. Carteret, President of Geneva, and by several of the principal clergymen. General Grant said, in replying to the toast given to America, that the greatest honor he had received since landing in Europe was to be among Americans, and in a republic, and in a city where so great a service had been rendered to the Americans by a Swiss citizen in the settlement of a question which might have produced war, but which left no rancor on either side. On the 30th, the General left Geneva for the North Italian lakes, thence to Ragatz, where he spent several days for rest and recuperation with his brother-in-law, M. J. Cramer, American Minister to Denmark.

On the 5th of August, General Grant went to Pallanza, on Lake Maggiore; thence to Lake Como, stopping at Bellagio; thence to Varese. At each of these points he was received with great enthusiasm, his stay being one grand round of festivities, each city seeming to vie with the other in the hospitalities offered. At Lake Maggiore, addresses were made by the Mayor and an officer who served under General Garibaldi. General Grant, in his reply, referred to the exceeding hospitality he had received, praised

the general conduct of the people so far as he had seen them, expressed his delight at the grand and lovely scenes that had met his eye at every turn since he had crossed the Alps, and concluded by saying, "There is one Italian whose hand I wish especially to shake, and that man is General Garibaldi." This allusion was greeted with a perfect storm of applause.

On the 18th, the General visited Copenhagen, where he was received with distinguished honors, and at Antwerp a like cordial reception was given.

On the 25th, he returned to England, having made a hurried and fatiguing continental tour, where he rested, previous to accepting the urgent and flattering invitation to visit Scotland.

The fact that General Grant is named Ulysses, and that, in making "the grand tour," has suggested a classic comparison to the good-natured jokers of the obvious. It seems, too, as though the General had determined to keep up the character of the wandering king of Ithaca; for the heavy English journals, after slowly lifting their eyebrows to the point of astonishment that Ulysses the Silent could speak at all, have found the word "wise" to apply to what he did utter. Indeed, one of them believed that the term silent was ironical, and as proof quoted from "his remarkable speech" that sentence about fighting it out on a certain line if it took all summer. Perhaps if we use a society phrase, and say that General Grant has been "happy" in his recent after-dinner utterances, we shall come nearer the mark. When there are certain unpleasant topics that might be touched on, it is "happy" to avoid them at such times; and when the speaker who ignores them plunges into platitudes about "common blood and kindred peoples," he may be called felicitous when he is only politely adroit. In England, for instance, the General kept clear of blockade runners and Confederate scrip, and, when the Alabama was

forced before him, only touched on that piratical craft as a sort of blessing in disguise to both peoples. On the other hand, he was overwhelmingly unctuous in calling the English our blood relations, making the glasses dance on the festive board with the thunderous applause he evoked from noble lords and lofty commoners.

In Frankfort, however, he had a chance to say a "happy" thing, and he said it. In Frankfort they bought our bonds, when it was vital to the nation that our securi ties should find purchasers. To be sure, they made a good thing of it, for they bought them cheap; but England and poor generals had cheapened them. Hence it was a "happy" thing for the soldier who brought our "boys" and our bonds "out of the wilderness"- the former to Richmond, and the latter to par and beyond-to tell the Frankforters how well they had stood by the Union in its darkest days. There was much good German blood spilled in the cause of the Union, so that his hearers were aware that the General referred to heart-strings as well as purse-strings in his compliment to them. So, also, at Geneva, his compliment to the representative whose "casting vote" turned the scales in the Geneva award was not forgotten; in fact, the General seemed to be in a "happy" vein, complimenting without stint. This change, or rather drawing out of General Grant's thoughts, will surprise none more than his intimate friends, who have known him only by works, not words.

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