OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



class, but all joyous and noisy/ the bands of marching 

 youths, buzzing the popular airs of the year on the 

 euphonious Mirliton ; the siege of every " kiosk " where 

 the wafers hot from the mould, or the cool lemonade, 

 were dispensed / the swans, stately but voracious, being 

 fed upon the great pond , the bright coloured beribboned 

 nourrices squatting with the nurslings on the circular benches 

 within sound of the musique militaire, and the inevitable giant 

 bearded sapeur in flirtatious attendance/ the quite too 

 beautiful officers with tight waists, waxed moustaches and 

 swaying gold epaulets what not ? 



Before the great gates, solemnly walking to and fro, or 

 standing picturesquely sentinel, there never wanted a party 

 of veteran grenadiers in their towering brass-fronted bear- 

 skins and white cross-belts to produce the desired " Old 

 Guard " effect. Or it might be heavy-moustached 

 troopers, Guides, with sweeping plumes over the huge 

 colback ; with pelisses of fur and eagle-embroidered 

 sabretaches, copying, on their side, the grim appearance of 

 Napoleon's <the real one's) body guard. 

 The whole place, indeed, was pervaded with the " immense " 

 uniforms of those pretorians: those long service profes- 

 sional soldiers for whose showy maintenance the Imperial 

 Government stinted an otherwise dwindling national army 

 disastrous army, destined, despite its gallantry, to be 

 so soon decimated, swept away, by the legions of das 

 Volk in Woffen wielded with the ruthless mastery of 

 German generalship ! 



For such as have only known France since the strictly 

 utilitarian days that followed the great debacle; days 

 when the notion that any kind of smartness is incompatible 

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