the church where the funeral services would be held. It is small
and old and severely plain, plastered outside and whitewashed or
painted, and with no ornament but a statue of a monk in a niche
over the door, 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-green
plumes above pale-blue shoulders which made another splotch of
splendor emphatic and conspicuous in its glowing surroundings.
It was a sea of flashing color all about, but these two groups
were the high notes. The green plumes were worn by forty or
fifty Austrian generals, the group opposite them were chiefly
Knights of Malta and knights of a German order. The mass of
heads in the square were covered by gilt helmets and by military
caps roofed with a mirror-like gaze, and the movements of the
wearers caused these things to catch the sun-rays, and the effect
was fine to see–the square was like a garden of richly colored
flowers with a multitude of blinding and flashing little suns
distributed over it.
Think of it–it was by command of that Italian loafer yonder
on his imperial throne in the Geneva prison that this splendid
multitude was assembled there; and the kings and emperors that
were entering the church from a side street were there by his will.
It is so strange, so unrealizable.
At three o’clock the carriages were still streaming by in
single file. At three-five a cardinal arrives with his
attendants; later some bishops; then a number of archdeacons–all
in striking colors that add to the show. At three-ten a
procession of priests passed along, with crucifix. Another one,
presently; after an interval, two more; at three-fifty another
one–very long, with many crosses, gold-embroidered robes, and