much white lace; also great pictured banners, at intervals,
receding into the distance.
A hum of tolling bells makes itself heard, but not sharply.
At three-fifty-eight a waiting interval. Presently a long
procession of gentlemen in evening dress comes in sight and
approaches until it is near to the square, then falls back
against the wall of soldiers at the sidewalk, and the white
shirt-fronts show like snowflakes and are very conspicuous where
so much warm color is all about.
A waiting pause. At four-twelve the head of the funeral
procession comes into view at last. First, a body of cavalry,
four abreast, to widen the path. Next, a great body of lancers,
in blue, with gilt helmets. Next, three six-horse mourning-
coaches; outriders and coachmen in black, with cocked hats and
white wigs. Next, troops in splendid uniforms, red, gold, and
white, exceedingly showy.
Now the multitude uncover. The soldiers present arms; there
is a low rumble of drums; the sumptuous great hearse approaches,
drawn at a walk by eight black horses plumed with black bunches
of nodding ostrich feathers; the coffin is borne into the church,
the doors are closed.
The multitude cover their heads, and the rest of the
procession moves by; first the Hungarian Guard in their
indescribably brilliant and picturesque and beautiful uniform,
inherited from the ages of barbaric splendor, and after them
other mounted forces, a long and showy array.
Then the shining crown in the square crumbled apart, a
wrecked rainbow, and melted away in radiant streams, and in the
turn of a wrist the three dirtiest and raggedest and cheerfulest
little slum-girls in Austria were capering about in the spacious
vacancy. It was a day of contrasts.
Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state. The first time
was in 1854, when she was a bride of seventeen, and then she rode
in measureless pomp and with blare of music through a fluttering
world of gay flags and decorations, down streets walled on both
hands with a press of shouting and welcoming subjects; and the
second time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her
coffin and moved down the same streets in the dead of the night
under swaying black flags, between packed human walls again; but
everywhere was a deep stillness, now–a stillness emphasized,
rather than broken, by the muffled hoofbeats of the long
cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, and the low sobbing
of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entry forty-four
years before, when she and they were young–and unaware!
A character in Baron von Berger’s recent fairy drama
“Habsburg” tells about the first coming of the girlish Empress-
Queen, and in his history draws a fine picture: I cannot make a
close translation of it, but will try to convey the spirit of the
verses:
I saw the stately pageant pass:
In her high place I saw the Empress-Queen:
I could not take my eyes away
From that fair vision, spirit-like and pure,
That rose serene, sublime, and figured to my sense
A noble Alp far lighted in the blue,
That in the flood of morning rends its veil of cloud
And stands a dream of glory to the gaze
Of them that in the Valley toil and plod.
——————————————————————
A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY
Marion City, on the Mississippi River, in the State of
Missouri–a village; time, 1845. La Bourboule-les-Bains, France
–a village; time, the end of June, 1894. I was in the one
village in that early time; I am in the other now. These times
and places are sufficiently wide apart, yet today I have the
strange sense of being thrust back into that Missourian village
and of reliving certain stirring days that I lived there so long
ago.
Last Saturday night the life of the President of the French
Republic was taken by an Italian assassin. Last night a mob
surrounded our hotel, shouting, howling, singing the
“Marseillaise,” and pelting our windows with sticks and stones;
for we have Italian waiters, and the mob demanded that they be
turned out of the house instantly–to be drubbed, and then driven
out of the village. Everybody in the hotel remained up until far
into the night, and experienced the several kinds of terror which