hief, at which thousands of sacrificed
victims accompany the soul of a prince so that it shall not pass alone
into the kingdom of spirits, and made her fancy that perhaps this
pompous and interminable retinue was about to descend and disappear in
the superhuman grave large enough to receive the whole of it.

"_Now and in the hour of our death. Amen_," Crenmitz murmured, while the
cab swayed from side to side in the lighted square, and high in space
the golden statue of Liberty seemed to be taking a magic flight; and the
old dancer's prayer was perhaps the one note of sincere feeling called
forth on the immense line of the funeral procession.

All the speeches are over; three long speeches as icy as the vault
into which the dead man has just descended, three official declamations
which, above all, have provided the orators with an opportunity of
giving loud voice to their own devotion to the interests of the dynasty.
Fifteen times the guns have roused the many echoes of the cemetery,
shaken the wreaths of jet and everlasting flowers--the light _ex-voto_
offerings suspended at the corners of the monuments--and while a reddish
mist floats and rolls with a smell of gunpowder across the city of the
dead, ascends and mingles slowly with the smoke of factories in the
plebeian district, the innumerable assembly disperses also, scattered
through the steep streets, down the lofty steps all white among the
foliage, with a confused murmur, a rippling as of waves over rocks.
Purple robes, black robes, blue and green coats, shoulder-knots of gold,
slender swords, of whose safety the wearers assure themselves with
their hands as they walk, all hasten to regain their carriages. People
exchange low bows, discreet smiles, while the mourning-coaches tear down
the carriage-ways at a gallop, revealing long lines of black coachmen,
with backs bent, hats tilted forward, the box-coats flying in the wind
made by their rapid motion.

The general impression is one of thankfulness to have reached the end
of a long and fatiguing performance, a legitimate eagerness to quit the
administrative harness and ceremonial costumes, to unbuckle sashes, to
loosen stand-up collars and neckbands, to slacken the tension of facial
muscles, which had been subject to long restraint.

Heavy and short, dragging along his swollen legs with difficulty,
Hemerlingue was hastening towards the exit, declining the offers which
were made to him of a seat in this or that c