"When I woke up next morning, the sun was shining as usual, drums were beating in the streets, and when I came down to breakfast and said good-morning to my father I heard how the barber had whispered to him while he was shaving him that the new Grand Duke Joachim was to receive the homage of his subjects at the City Hall to-day, that he came of a very good family and had been given the Emperor Napoleon's sister in marriage, and had really a very good presence, and wore his fine black hair in curls, and would shortly enter the city in state and would certainly please all the ladies. Meanwhile, the drumming continued in the street, and I went and stood outside the door and watched the French troops marching in, those glorious happy Frenchmen, who marched through the world with songs and shining sabres, the gay firm-set faces of the Grenadiers, the bear-skins, the tricolour cockades, the gleaming bayonets, the merry skilful horsemen, and the huge great drum-major with his silver-embroidered uniform, who could throw his drum-stick with its gilt button up to the first floor, and his eyes up even to the girls in the second floor windows. I was pleased that we were to have soldiers billeted on us--my mother was not--and I hurried to the market-place. There everything was quite different now. The world looked as if it had had a new coat of paint. A new coat-of-arms was hanging on the City Hall, the iron railings on the balcony were covered with tapestry hangings, French Grenadiers were standing sentry, the old City Councillors had put on new faces, and were wearing Sunday clothes, and looked at one another in French and said 'Bon jour,' ladies were looking out of all the windows, curious bystanders and smart soldiers thronged the square, and I and the other boys climbed on to the big horse of the Elector's statue and looked down on the gay crowd."[1] [Footnote 1: Heine, _Collected Works_, i. 228 (Book _Le Grand_).]