And even that was one variety of indifference. FOOTNOTES: [4] _Chose_--literally _thing._ In the public the gratification of a gorgeous spectacle, the joy of making a Sunday of a weekday, dominated every other feeling. As the procession passed along the boulevards, the spectators on the balconies almost applauded; here, in the populous quarters, irreverence manifested itself even more frankly. Coarse chaff, vulgar comments on the dead man and his doings, with which all Paris was familiar, laughter called forth by the broad-brimmed hats of the rabbis and the solemn "mugs" of the council of wise men, filled the air between two drum-beats. With feet in the water, dressed in blouses and cotton caps, the head uncovered from habit, poverty, forced labor, idleness and strikes watched with a sneer the passing of that dweller in another sphere, that brilliant duke now shorn of all his honors, who never in his life perhaps had visited that extremity of the city. But here he is! To reach the spot to which everybody goes, one must follow the road that everybody follows: Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Rue de la Roquette, to that mammoth toll-gate open so wide into the infinite. And _dame_! it is pleasant to see that noblemen like Mora, dukes and ministers, all take the same road to the same destination. That equality in death consoles one for many unjust things in life. To-morrow the bread will seem not so dear, the wine better, the tools less heavy, when one can say to oneself on rising: "Well, that old Mora had to come to it like everybody else." The procession dragged along, even more tiresome than lugubrious. Now it was the choral societies, deputations from the Army and Navy, officers of all arms of the service, herded together in front of a long line of empty carriages, mourning carriages, gentlemen's carriages, parading in compliance with etiquette; then came the troops in their turn, and Rue de la Roquette, that long street running through the filthy faubourg, already swarming with people as far as the eye could see, swallowed up a whole army, infantry, dragoons, lancers, carabineers, heavy guns with muzzles in the air, all ready to bark, shaking pavements and window-panes, but unable to drown the rolling of the drums, a sinister, barbarous sound, which transported Felicia's imagination to the obsequies of African monarchs, where thousands of immolated victims attend the soul of a prince so that it may not enter the kingdom of spirits alone, and made her think that perhaps that ostentatious, interminable procession was about to descend and disappear in a supernatural grave vast enough to hold it all. "Now, and in the hour of our death. Amen!" murmured La Crenmitz, while the cab rattled across the empty square, where Liberty, in solid gold, seemed to be taking a magic flight in space; and the old dancer's prayer was perhaps the only sincere note of true emotion uttered throughout the vast space covered by the funeral.