Malsburgh and Pappenheim, with the Catholic
Schimmelpenninck and Mohammed Said Halel Effendi,--all presented
themselves as penitent sinners imploring absolutions, after undergoing
mortifications.

But it would become tedious and merely a repetition, were I to depict
separately the figures and characters of all the personages at this
politico-comical masquerade. Their conversation was, however, more
uniform, more contemptible, and more laughable, than their accoutrements
and grimaces were ridiculous. To judge from what they said, they
belonged no longer to this world; all their thoughts were in heaven, and
they considered themselves either on the borders of eternity or on the
eve of the day of the Last Judgment. The truly devout Madame Napoleon
spoke with rapture of martyrs and miracles, of the Mass and of the
vespers, of Agnuses and relics of Christ her Saviour, and of Pius VII.,
His vicar. Had not her enthusiasm been interrupted by the enthusiastic
commentaries of her mother-in-law, I saw every mouth open ready to cry
out, as soon as she had finished, "Amen! Amen! Amen!"

Napoleon had placed himself between the old Cardinal de Bellois and the
not young Cardinal Bernier, so as to prevent the approach of any profane
sinner or unrepentant infidel. Round him and their clerical chiefs, all
the curates and grand vicars, almoners and chaplains of the Court, and
the capitals of the Princess, Princesses, and grand officers of State,
had formed a kind of cordon. "Had," said the young General Kellerman to
me, "Bonaparte always been encompassed by troops of this description, he
might now have sung hymns as a saint in heaven, but he would never have
reigned as an Emperor upon earth." This indiscreet remark was heard by
Louis Bonaparte, and on the next morning Kellerman received orders to
join the army in Hanover, where he was put under the command of a general
younger than himself. He would have been still more severely punished,
had not his father, the Senator (General Kellerman), been in so great
favour at the Court of St. Cloud, and so much protected by Duroc, who had
made, in 1792, his first campaign under this officer, then
commander-in-chief of the army of the Ardennes.

When this devout assembly separated, which was by courtesy an hour
earlier than usual, I expected every moment to hear a chorus of
horse-laughs, because I clearly perceived that all of them were tired of
their assumed parts, and, with me, incline