The leader of the opposite forces in vain attempts a defence similar to the attack. Some St. Anthony champions also climb on to their fellows’ shoulders. There is positively a second combat on the heads of the combatants, without, however, detracting in the slightest from the fury of the onslaught of those who are on _terra firma_. It was indeed something marvellous to see those two stages of warriors dealing each other blows and using all the combined resources of strength. The struggle was both violent and intense; at one moment it seemed that the banner of St. Anthony was going to be recovered. One of the champions of Sainte-Marie, the nearest to the parapet, took his club in both hands, and with a swing brought it down on the head of the adversary facing him. The latter reels, loses his balance, and drops into the Arno. Frenzied clamour from both sides rends the air. The army of the Holy Virgin redoubles its efforts and stands like a rock on the ground it has gained. Joshua was not there to stop the sun in its course. The third quarter of the hour has struck, the cannon gives the signal and the barrier is lowered. The army of the Holy Virgin remains the victor; the honour of the day belongs incontestably to it. Immediately the victorious quarter rang with joy and inspiriting blasts of trumpets, while a mournful silence and a feeling of disgrace fell upon that of the vanquished. It is a true saying that men derive the energy of their feelings from the sky under which they were born. Hence, while the champions of the Holy Virgin were loaded with caresses, praise, and gifts, carried in triumph and enthusiastically welcomed by their families, those of St. Anthony silently regained their domiciles, where sarcasm and reproaches awaited them, and where they perhaps deemed themselves fortunate if, for balm to their wounds, they did not get additional blows from their own flesh and blood. At night the victorious quarter was agog with balls, concerts, music, the tooting of horns, the whole of it only ceasing with morn. On the bank opposite everything remained pitch dark. The quarter conveyed the impression of being inhabited by ghosts. Nothing, I fancy, can be compared to that scene. For more than a century, Europe had not witnessed a similar spectacle, where everything, arms as well as wounds, was altogether serious. And he who had not seen a real battle might have well believed that he was witnessing one by going back in his imagination to an epoch when cannon was not as yet the last argument of kings. CHAPTER X The Prince de Ligne’s Song of the Congress--Life on the Graben --The Chronicle of the Congress--Echoes of the Congress-- A Companion Story to the Death of Vatel--Brie, the King of Cheese--Fête at Arnstein the Banker’s--The Fête at Prince Razumowski’s--The Prince Royal of Würtemberg--Russian Dances--Retrospection.