A Mexico les cancans vont leur train, On vous condamne avant de vous entendre, C'est bien "petit" d'ereinter son prochain, Bon entendeur saura bien nous comprendre. As this was sung the audience laughingly turned toward him--a fact which did not tend to make him more amiably disposed, although he bowed gracefully enough, and pretended to enjoy the fun. Altogether, the play, if more than a success as a performance, added nothing to the popularity of the quartier-general. It, however, created far more comment than its literary merit warranted--if this may be said, without detracting from the credit of the author, who himself, looking back upon it later in his career, said that it read as though it had been "written on a drum." Sadowa had been fought and lost; but it would have been difficult, to make out from their attitude whether or not the sympathies of the officers of the Corps Expeditionnaire were honestly with their Austrian allies. Strangely enough, the news had been received by them as though it involved no serious warning to France. The full significance of the new mode of warfare, of the needle-gun and other new implements of war, was obscured in their eyes by their naive Jingoism. The French officers in those days underrated all other nations; and even the superior armament and discipline of the Germans, as exhibited in that short campaign, failed to impress them as they should. They sang: L'aiguille est un outil Dont je ne suis en peine Tant que j'aurai la mienne [the bayonet] Au bout de mon fusil. Vous qui ehantez victoire, Heros de Sadowa, Rappelez-vous l'histoire D'Auerstadt et d'Iena. Alas! the time was drawing near when the cannon of Reichshofen was to change the merry tune of the French chanson into a dirge for many of the brave, light-hearted fellows, then so unmindful of the storm slowly gathering in the east. The pomp and dignity of the court had vanished, and social life in the capital no longer centered about the imperial palace. Even previous to the departure of the Empress, the Monday receptions had been discontinued, without their loss being seriously felt. At best they had never been other than dull, formal affairs. The ball-room was a large hall, always insufficiently lighted, and narrowed in the middle by the platform where stood the imperial throne under a canopy of velvet. Here, after their new guests had been officially presented in an adjoining hall, the Emperor and Empress took their seat. Before supper they made a solemn tour of the ball-room. The dancing then ceased, and the crowd stood in chilled expectancy, and made way for them, each in turn receiving from them, as they passed, a smile, a nod, or some commonplace word of greeting.