Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3)Spooner, Shearjashub
History
Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3)
Spooner, Shearjashub
Art -- Anecdotes; Artists -- Anecdotes
"The king and princes had left the Tuilleries, to be out of the view of
so mortifying a business The court of the palace, which used to be gay
with young _gardes du corps_ and equipages, was now silent, deserted,
and shut up. Not a soul moved in it. The top of the arch was filled with
people, and the horses, though as yet all there, might be seen to begin
to move. The carriages that were to take them away were in waiting
below, and a tackle of ropes was already affixed to one. The small door
leading to the top was protected by a strong guard: every one was
striving to obtain permission to gratify his curiosity, by visiting the
horses for the last time that they could be visited in this situation.
Permission, however, could necessarily be granted but to few. I was of
the fortunate number. In a minute I had climbed the narrow dark stair,
ascended a small ladder, and was out on the top, with the most
picturesque view before me that can be imagined. An English lady asked
me to assist her into Napoleon's car of victory: his own statue was to
have been placed in it, _when he came back a conqueror from his Russian
expedition!_ I followed the lady and her husband into the car, and we
found a Prussian officer there before us. He looked at us, and, with a
good humored smile, said, 'The emperor kept the English out of France,
but the English have now got where he could not! '_Ah, pauvre,
Napoleon!_'
"The cry of the French now was, that it was abominable, execrable, to
insult the king in his palace--to insult him in the face of his own
subjects by removing the horses in the face of day! I adjourned with a
friend to dine at a _restaurateur's_, near the garden of the Tuilleries,
after witnessing what I have described. Between seven and eight in the
evening we heard the rolling of wheels, the clatter of cavalry, and the
tramp of infantry. A number of British were in the room; they all rose
and rushed to the door without hats, and carrying in their haste their
white table napkins in their hands. The horses were going past in
military procession, lying on their sides, in separate cars. First came
cavalry, then infantry, then a car; then more cavalry, more infantry,
then another car; and so on till all four passed. The drums were
beating, and the standards went waving by. This was the only appearance
of parade that attended any of the removals. Three Frenchmen, seeing the
group of English, came up to us, and began a conversation. They appealed
to us if this was not shameful. A gentleman observed, that the horses
were only going back to the place from whence the French had taken them:
if there was a right in power for France, there must also be one for
other states but the better way to consider these events was as
terminating the times of robbery and discord. Two of them seemed much
inclined to come instantly round to our opinion: but one was much more
consistent. He appeared an officer, and was advanced beyond the middle
age of life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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