Helena--the Iron English
Duke--the pinnacle turned into a pillory so soon!
_"O corse a cheveux plats, que la France etait belle Au soleil de
Messidor!"_
And Mirabeau and Robespierre, and Danton and Marat and Charlotte Corday!
we have seen them too; and Marie Antoinette and the fish-wives, and "the
beautiful head of Lamballe" (on its pike!) ... and watched the tumbrils
go by to the Place du Carrousel, and gazed at the guillotine by
moonlight--silent and terror-stricken, our very hearts in our mouths....
And in the midst of it all, ridiculous stray memories of Madame Tussaud
would come stealing into our ghastly dream of blood and retribution,
mixing up past and present and future in a manner not to be described,
and making us smile through our tears!
Then we were present (several times!) at the taking of the Bastille, and
indeed witnessed most of the stormy scenes of that stormy time, with our
Carlyle in our hands; and often have we thought, and with many a hearty
laugh, what fun it must be to write immortal histories, with never an
eye-witness to contradict you!
And going further back we have haunted Versailles in the days of its
splendor, and drunk our fill of all the glories of the court of
Louis XIV!
What imposing ceremonials, what stupendous royal functions have we not
attended--where all the beauty, wit, and chivalry of France, prostrate
with reverence and awe (as in the very presence of a god), did loyal
homage to the greatest monarch this world has ever seen--while we sat
by, on the very steps of his throne, as he solemnly gave out his royal
command! and laughed aloud under his very nose--the shallow, silly,
pompous little snob--and longed to pull it! and tried to disinfect his
greasy, civet-scented, full-bottomed wig with wholesome whiffs from a
nineteenth-century regalia!
Nothing of that foolish but fascinating period escaped us.
Pages:
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338