The ball lasted all night. We--Mr. Goulden, Catherine, and I--were
asleep, when about three in the morning we were wakened by the hussars
going by and the shouts of "Vive le Duc de Berry." These princes must
have excellent health to be able to go to all the balls and dinners
which are offered to them on their journeys. And it must become very
tiresome at last to be called "Your Majesty," "Your Excellence," "Your
Goodness," and "Your Justice," and everything else that can be thought
of, that is new and extraordinary, in order to make them believe that
the people adore them and look upon them as gods. If they do despise
the men at last it is not astonishing. If the same thing were done to
us we might think ourselves eagles too.
What I have told you is exactly the truth. I have exaggerated nothing.
The next day they began again with new enthusiasm. The weather was
very fine, but as the prince had slept badly, and the children who
wished to imitate the court without succeeding, annoyed him, and he
thought perhaps, that they had not done him sufficient honor and had
not shouted "Vive le Roi, Vive le Duc de Berry" loud and long
enough--for all the _soldiers_ kept silent--he was in a very bad humor.
I saw him very well that day, while the review was taking place--the
soldiers occupied the sides of the square, we were at Wittman's, the
leather merchant, on the first floor--and also during the consecration
of the flag and the Te Deum at the church, for we had the fourth pew in
front of the choir. They said he looked like Napoleon, but it was not
true; he was a good-looking fat fellow, short and thick, and pale with
fatigue, and not at all lively, quite the contrary. During the service
he did nothing but yawn and rock back and forth like a pendulum. I am
telling you what I saw myself, and that shows how blind people are,
they want to find resemblances everywhere.
During the review, too, I remembered that the Emperor always came on
horseback, and so would discover at a glance if everything was in
order; instead of this, the duke came along the ranks on foot, and two
or three times he found fault with old soldiers, examining them from
head to foot. That was the worst. Zebede was one of these men, and he
never could forgive him.
That was well enough for the review, but a more serious thing was the
distribution of the crosses and the fleur-de-lis. When I tell you that
all the mayors and their assistants, the councillors from the
Baraques-d'en-Haut and the Baraques-du-bois-de-Chenes, from Holderloch
and Hirschland, received the fleur-de-lis because they headed their
village deputations with a white flag, and that Pinacle received the
cross of honor, for having arrived first with the band of the Bohemian,
Waldteufel, who played "Vive Henri IV.," and had five or six white
flags larger than the others; when I tell you that, you will understand
what reasonable people thought. It was a real scandal!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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