or, and above
that a small black flag. But in its crypt lie several of the great dead
of the House of Habsburg, among them Maria Theresa and Napoleon's son,
the Duke of Reichstadt. Hereabouts was a Roman camp, once, and in it the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius died a thousand years before the first Habsburg
ruled in Vienna, which was six hundred years ago and more.

The little church is packed in among great modern stores and houses,
and the windows of them were full of people. Behind the vast plate-glass
windows of the upper floors of the house on the corner one glimpsed
terraced masses of fine-clothed men and women, dim and shimmery, like
people under water. Under us the square was noiseless, but it was full
of citizens; officials in fine uniforms were flitting about on errands,
and in a doorstep sat a figure in the uttermost raggedness of poverty,
the feet bare, the head bent humbly down; a youth of eighteen or twenty,
he was, and through the field-glass one could see that he was tearing
apart and munching riffraff that he had gathered somewhere. Blazing
uniforms flashed by him, making a sparkling contrast with his drooping
ruin of moldy rags, but he took not notice; he was not there to grieve
for a nation's disaster; he had his own cares, and deeper. From two
directions two long files of infantry came plowing through the pack and
press in silence; there was a low, crisp order and the crowd vanished,
the square save the sidewalks was empty, the private mourner was gone.
Another order, the soldiers fell apart and enclosed the square in a
double-ranked human fence. It was all so swift, noiseless, exact--like a
beautifully ordered machine.

It was noon, now. Two hours of stillness and waiting followed. Then
carriages began to flow past and deliver the two and three hundred court
personages and high nobilities privileged to enter the church. Then the
square filled up; not with civilians, but with army and navy officers in
showy and beautiful uniforms. They filled it compactly, leaving only a
narrow carriage path in front of the church, but there was no civilian
among them. And it was better so; dull clothes would have marred the
radiant spectacle. In the jam in front of the church, on its steps, and
on the sidewalk was a bunch of uniforms which made a blazing splotch
of color--intense red, gold, and white--which dimmed the brilliancies
around them; and opposite them on the other side of the path was a bunch
of cascaded bright-