looked like Napoleon, but it was not
true; he was a good-looking fat fellow, short and thick, and pale with
fatigue, and not at all lively, quite the contrary. During the service
he did nothing but yawn and rock back and forth like a pendulum. I am
telling you what I saw myself, and that shows how blind people are,
they want to find resemblances everywhere.

During the review, too, I remembered that the Emperor always came on
horseback, and so would discover at a glance if everything was in
order; instead of this, the duke came along the ranks on foot, and two
or three times he found fault with old soldiers, examining them from
head to foot. That was the worst. Zebede was one of these men, and he
never could forgive him.

That was well enough for the review, but a more serious thing was the
distribution of the crosses and the fleur-de-lis. When I tell you that
all the mayors and their assistants, the councillors from the
Baraques-d'en-Haut and the Baraques-du-bois-de-Chenes, from Holderloch
and Hirschland, received the fleur-de-lis because they headed their
village deputations with a white flag, and that Pinacle received the
cross of honor, for having arrived first with the band of the Bohemian,
Waldteufel, who played "Vive Henri IV.," and had five or six white
flags larger than the others; when I tell you that, you will understand
what reasonable people thought. It was a real scandal!

In the afternoon about four o'clock, the prince left for Strasbourg,
accompanied by all the royalists in the country on horseback, some on
good mounts, and others, like Pinacle, on old hacks.

One event the Pfalzbourgers of that day remember until this, and that
is, that after the prince was seated in his carriage and was driving
slowly away, one of the emigre officers with his head uncovered and in
uniform, ran after him, crying in a pitiful voice, "Bread, my prince,
bread for my children!" That made the people blush, and they ran away
for shame.

We went home in silence, Father Goulden was lost in thought, when Aunt
Gredel arrived.

"Well! Mother Gredel, you ought to be satisfied," said he.

"And why?"

"Because Pinacle has been decorated."

She turned quite livid, and said after a minute:

"That is the greatest trumpery that ever was seen. If the prince had
known what he is, he would have hung him rather than decorate him with
the cross of honor."

"That is just the trouble," said Mr. Goulden, "those people do m