So now the Board of Aldermen appointed a committee, and the committee called upon General George P. Morris to write an original ode and the Sacred Music Society to sing it. “The Society’s vocal performers were rising two hundred, male and female.” The bells of the churches were bidden to ring; the artillery to fire salutes. All the distinguished personages on the continent were invited to attend and witness the most resplendent procession ever devised. The date was set for the fourteenth of October and the citizens devoted themselves to the preparation of banners, uniforms, and maneuvers, and the polishing of fire-engines, swords, shoes, and phrases. An invitation was addressed to the President of the United States, but Mr. Tyler was prevented by “circumstances”; and the ex-President John Adams by “indispensable engagements at home.” Ex-President Van Buren found it not in his power to avail himself of the polite invitation. Governor Seward had “a severe indisposition,” but accepted. The British Consul accepted “with feelings of no ordinary kind,” and remarked that “tyrants have left monuments which call forth admiration, but no work of a free people for magnitude and utility equals this great enterprise.” The Consul of France presented his compliments and would be happy to join with them. The Consul of Prussia had much pleasure in accepting. The Consul of the Netherlands had the honor of joining. The Consul for Greece and Count Heckscher, the Consul for Mecklenburg, regretted, but the Consuls of the Two Sicilies, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Frankfort, and Venezuela accepted. The Consul of Mexico was prevented by absence, and the Consul of Texas, the recent republic of Texas, feared that his “engagements of the day would deprive him of the pleasure.” Officers of the navy, the army, the bench, governors, mayors, engineers, bankers, and others innumerable accepted or declined. The common people prepared to turn out in a body. The enthusiasm was so pervasive, that even the children felt the thrill of the epochal day. The RoBards youngsters, little Keith and his sister Immy, were feverish. The very baby at Patty’s breast seemed to beat the air and crow like chanticleer at the mention of the Fourteenth of October. The one sure bribe for good behavior was a promise to go to New York for the parade; the one effective punishment a threat of being left at home. Hardly an account of the aqueduct or the festival omitted Chalender’s name, and RoBards grew so accustomed to it that he all but forgot the horror it had once involved. He was himself infected by the glory of the hour. It was like seeing one of the Pyramids dedicated, or the Sphinx christened.