down to our own day. All these people, seen
in profile, still and upright, behind the large glass panes of the
carriage windows, had indeed the appearance of personages in coloured
plates, sitting well forward on the edge of the seats in order that
the spectators should miss nothing of their golden embroideries, their
palm-leaves, their galloons, their braids--puppets given over to the
curiosity of the crowd--and exposing themselves to it with an air of
indifference and detachment.

Indifference! That was the most special characteristic of this funeral.
It was to be felt everywhere, on people's faces and in their hearts, as
well among these functionaries of whom the greater part had only known
the duke by sight, as in the ranks on foot between his hearse and his
brougham, his closest friends, or those who had been in daily attendance
upon him. The fat minister, Vice-President of the Council, seemed
indifferent, and even glad, as he held in his powerful fist the strings
of the pall and seemed to draw it forward, in more haste than the horses
and the hearse to conduct to his six feet of earth the enemy of twenty
years' standing, the eternal rival, the obstacle to all his ambitions.
The other three dignitaries did not advance with the same vigour, and
the long cords floated loosely in their weary or careless hands with
significant slackness. The priests were indifferent by profession.
Indifferent were the servants of his household, whom he never called
anything but "_chose_," and whom he treated really like "things."
Indifferent was M. Louis, for whom it was the last day of servitude, a
slave become emancipated, rich enough to enjoy his ransom. Even among
the intimate friends of the dead man this glacial cold had penetrated.
Yet some of them had been deeply attached to him. But Cardailhac was too
busy superintending the order and the progress of the procession to give
way to the least emotion, which would, besides, have been foreign to his
nature. Old Monpavon, stricken to the heart, would have considered the
least bending of his linen cuirass and of his tall figure a piece of
deplorably bad taste, totally unworthy of his illustrious friend. His
eyes remained as dry and glittering as ever, since the undertakers
provide the tears for great mournings, embroidered in silver on black
cloth. Some one was weeping, however, away yonder among the members of
the committee; but he was expending his compassion very naively upon
hims