At St. Paul’s Cathedral, beside the glorious bones of England’s elder
idol, the Admiral of the empty eye-socket and the vacant sleeve, the
grand old white head of England’s soldier-hero was laid to rest. The
Army was Chief Mourner, the Nation followed him to the tomb. Britons
had heartily hated him as Minister--as military leader they adored
him. Nothing was remembered in that parting hour but what they owed to
him. His funeral wreaths were hardly withered when,--with some noise
of cheering from the Officers’ Mess at lunch-time, echoed from the
Sergeants’--who were having dinner--caught up by a squad dismissed
from drill, and vociferously joined in by heads that were thrust from
troop-room windows, it was made known at the Barracks of the Hundredth
Lancers that the gentleman who had got himself elected President of the
French a year or so previously, had now proclaimed himself Emperor of
that nation. Upon the subject Mrs. Geogehagan was as bitterly sarcastic
as Mrs. Geogehagan alone could be.
“Hooroo, Jude!” said she. “Cook him up wid a crown on! Sure there will
be no houldin’ him now--such will be the proide and consayt av the
cobbler’s dog!”
“And will it do us any good--the gentleman’s being made an Emperor?”
asked Mrs. Joshua Horrotian, who was sitting on her bed, nursing the
infant Sarah, while little Josh, now a sturdy red-haired toddler of two
years old, was dragging a headless wooden horse about the well-scrubbed
floor.
“Why, none as I can think on,” somewhat moodily returned Mrs. Joshua
Horrotian’s husband, who sat upon a bench not far off, engaged in doing
what he would have technically termed “a bit of sogering”--represented
in the polishing of divers chain-straps, buttons, badges, and
belt-buckles to the brightest point of brilliancy attainable by the use
of scraps of “shammy” and whitened rag.
“Unless,” he added, “being well-disposed towards our country and our
people, he med-be were to ask us to go snacks with ’n in a European
War. With the Pruskis or th’ Ruskis--that be showin’ their teeth just
now at the Turkeys--there baint much to choose between Foreigners
anyway,” said Joshua oracularly. “Not but what,” he continued, with an
afterthought, “they French Frogs be foreigners, too. And us have fought
’em in the Duke’s day--and learned ’em the taste of a beating. ’Twould
be oddish, now I come to think of it,” said the trooper musingly,
“for we to take ’em for Allies at this time o’ day! And howsomever
friendly this new Emperor may call hisself, there baint no gettin’ away
from the truth of his being the nephew o’ the man as we boxed up in
St. Helena--and his being, by reason o’ that, a poor, out-at-elbows,
shabby kind o’ beggar--till his luck took the turn. ’Taint in Nature to
suppose he’s as uncommon fond of us as he makes out. I’m dodgasted,”
said Josh, employing the Sloughshire imprecation, “if I should be in
his place! What be ye thinking of, my Pretty?”
For Nelly was looking at him across the baby, with a dubious wrinkle
between her hazel eyes.
“Could I love ’e, I do wonder,” she breathed in the ear he leaned to
her, “supposing you’d went and killed a live man!”
“It wouldn’t be a man, Pretty--it would be an enemy!” explained the
trooper in all sober faith.
“But a man for all--of live flesh and blood!” Her sweet underlip turned
downwards like a grieved child’s. The trooper said, after a slight
reflective pause:
“Why, dash my button-stick! I never thought of the beggar in that
light. Howsomever, the chances are that th’ boot might be on t’other
leg--as far as the killing went. Halloa! Why, what’s this for?”
He had been leaning forwards, looking at the baby, and his handsome
head was very near the bosom whence it drank. So, pierced by the stab
of that light careless reference to the grim chances of War, Nelly had
thrown her strong young arm about her husband’s neck, and snatched him
to her, panting:
“Oh, if he ever dared!... The wicked--wicked----”
Mrs. Geogehagan, squatting on her own bed mending her Corporal’s
overalls, cried herrings in reprobation:
“Wickud, is ut? Sure, and wouldn’t his wife--whoever she was, poor
craythur!--an’ whatever outlandish, quare kind av lingo she might use
to spake her mind in, be afther havin’ an aiqual right to say the same
av your man?”
Mrs. Geogehagan went on to say that Active Service, meanin’ liberal
Bounties, and more Pay, and the chances of Promotion, the jooty of
every raal soldier’s wife was to lep out av her skin wid joy at the
wind av the worrud av a War.
The intelligence being shortly afterwards conveyed to Moggy that “ould
Boney’s nevey” was seeking a consort among the marriageable daughters
of European Reigning Sovereigns, she cried more herrings on the
outrajis impidence of the man.
“A mane little jumped-up spigareethahaun!... Offerin’ himself to ivery
King’s daughter in Creation before the sate of his throne is warrum!...
Begob! we’d have him axing Queen Victoria herself to stan’ up before
the priest wid him--supposing herself wasn’t suited wid a betther man!”
His Imperial Majesty’s repeated failures to secure a suitable alliance
caused Moggy exquisite gratification. She relented towards him a little
upon his officially-announced determination to follow the dictates of
his heart, and tread the flower-strewn path of connubial happiness,
indicated by the implacable hunting-whip of Mademoiselle de Montijo.
Public Securities went down two francs; Court jewelers, dressmakers,
tailors, modistes and florists, wine-merchants and confectioners,
danced like happy motes in the golden rays of Imperial Patronage; and
Marquises, Dukes, and Counts of Napoleon I.’s creation--who had crept
out of dark forgotten corners when the Empire came in again--cleaned
the dust off their forelegs, and spread their crumpled wings, and
buzzed like joyous bluebottles about the tables being spread for the
Wedding Banquet. Most of the nobles of the defunct Monarchy danced
to the tune Monsiegneur played them. But the ancient Duchesse de
Viellecourt and the venerable Marquis de l’Autretemps, and the younger
scions of the Old Régime--these would not shake a leg for him, however
he might pipe.
But Paris was very gay indeed, blazing with new uniforms and newer
bonnets,--bristling with lances, bayonets, and expectation.... The
bustle and clamor were prodigious, the rattle of drums and the blare
of trumpets, the squealing of feminine sightseers crushed in the
crowd--the cursing of male citizens whose toes had been pounded by
rifle-butts, made thick the air. Swarms of foreigners, avid to behold
the pageant, filled the hotels and boarding-houses to bursting--you
may imagine the accent of Albion predominant in the salad of mingled
pronunciations--you may suppose the gold of the Briton clanking royally
into the Gaul’s trouser-pockets and tills.
Upon the carriage of the Imperial _cortége_,-- (each drawn by six
white horses) the arms of the Bourbons had been effaced in favor of
the Imperial Crown. Over which the golden letters “N” and “E” had
been tastefully emblazoned on a chaste cerulean blue background....
_The_ carriage was drawn by eight prancing steeds, adorned with
nodding plumes. And its domed roof was topped with an Imperial Crown
of dimensions that caused the vehicle to sway and to wobble; so that
the Eagle perching at each corner, and the Loves and Graces painted on
its panels of mother-o’-pearl and golden lacquer, shuddered as though
palsied with ceremonial stage-fright.
Sixteen colossal gilt eagles perched on the hoary towers of Notre Dame,
brooding with outspread wings of blessing over the nuptial solemnities.
Everything that could be draped, was draped with green velvet powdered
with golden bees. The nave was carpeted with green. The Canopy above
the Imperial Throne, and the Matrimonial Chair upon the dais (covered
with a white carpet spotted with black, to represent ermine)--was of
crimson velvet, bee-besprinkled. Above the Canopy was another Imperial
Crown, on which sat another eagle--apparently of solid gold.
Referring to the Imperial Wedding number of the _Ladies’ Mentor_--into
which entrancing periodical Mrs. Geogehagan,--acting during a
delicate domestic crisis as nurse to a new baby of the Colonel’s
lady--occasionally got a peep--it appears the Empress--already admitted
to that title by the civil ceremony, was dazzling and _spirituelle_ in
a dress and train of white _velours épinglé_, and a diadem of superb
diamonds, with a veil of _point d’Angleterre_. The Emperor,--admitted
to be at considerable disadvantage in point of height as compared with
his stately bride,--wore the Grand Cross and Collar of the Legion
of Honor, with many other Stars and Orders, above the uniform of a
French General of Division,--ending in white doeskins, high boots with
four-inch heels, and spurs.
Five Cardinal-Archbishops and ten Bishops tied the sacred knot
between them. Hooroo, Jude! Mrs. Geogehagan blessed herself to think
of that. And so, attended by Ladies of Honor, Ministers, Marshals of
France, and other State dignitaries, with Foreign Envoys and Minister
Plenipotentiaries, the wedding-guests and a tag-rag and bobtail of
Notabilities, Personages, and gilded and upholstered Functionaries--the
splendid procession returned to the Tuileries.
Nothing--observed the Imperial Press organs--could be more proper than
the attitude of the people. Not a single hostile expression was heard
by the official reporter along the route. A statement of the purest
verity, for although the troops and the salaried hoorayers shouted
“_Vive l’Empereur! Vive l’Impératrice!_” at certain fixed intervals,
the frozen silence of the people as that leaden, puffy face of
Monsiegneur’s passed by in the great creaking gilded coach beside the
snow-white face of the beautiful Empress--was unbroken and profound.
He had become, perforce, accustomed to these silent acclamations, as,
nodding as mechanically as any China Mandarin, he would be carried
through the streets of the capital he had besmeared with blood. For
though he had gagged the Assembly--swept the boulevards with discharges
of grape, ridden down and sabered Frenchmen and Frenchwomen in broad
daylight--locked the doors of the High Court of Justice--faked a
_Senatus Consultum_, forged signatures to the Ballot Papers of the
_Plebiscite_ by the cartload; refurbished old Napoleon’s dusty
throne--mounted the seat--clapped his wings and cockadoodled the Prince
of Knaves into the Emperor of Traitors--he could not make his people
cheer.
Students and grisettes, artisans and their sweethearts, might exclaim
at the beauty of the Empress and the splendor of her jewels. Not one
woman envied her--not one man would have changed places with _him_.
Wherever his puffy face and leaden eyes turned, as he bowed from side
to side with the mechanical courtesy of a clockwork puppet or the
Mandarin of China--not a hat was raised--not a handkerchief waved,--not
a voice wished him long life or happiness. The regard that met his was
as bleak, and cold, and nipping as the bitter January day.
He could intern those who had offended him in distant provincial
townships. In cells of civil prisons, in dungeons of Military
Fortresses, he could immure others, for the term of their natural
lives. He could sentence yet others to be hugged to death by the Red
Widow, or have them shot; and he did constantly. But none the more
could he make the people cheer.
There were faces more exalted that as coldly regarded his pretensions.
To wit, those Reigning Monarchs, parents of marriageable daughters who
had declined the honor of his hand. Also the young Emperor of Austria,
and the King of Prussia, and more formidable than all these put
together, the grim Colossus of the icy North.
By Nicholas Romanoff, Autocrat of all the Russias,--who lived as
plainly as the humblest of his soldiers, and died on a sack of
leather stuffed with hay--the Tsar to whom Monsiegneur--when merely
Monsiegneur--had made secret and ineffectual overtures with a view to
the dismemberment and division of the Ottoman Empire--the brand-new
Imperial Majesty of France was treated with a distant civility that
galled and stung--as possibly it was meant to do.
England, the ancient, tried, and proven ally of Russia, was presently
to bind herself in monstrous alliance with the crowned adventurer. The
chaste Victoria was to dance at his Embassy--visit his capital--kiss
him upon both cheeks--strange pasture for lips so stainless!--and call
him “Sire my Brother.”
But to Nicholas--until he became “Sire my Enemy,” he was never to be
anything but “Sire my Friend.”