FORGOTTEN BRILLIANCIES 



with "republican efficiency seems to have become an 

 obsession " it is difficult to realize the gilded magnificence 

 of the Garde Imperiale. Still less, perhaps, in these anti- 

 militarist times, the idolatry of the people for its beaux 

 militaires. Of a truth, on a sunny day, they brightened 

 the park walks almost as much as the Geraniums in the 

 great stone urns, or the forbidden golden fruit in the orange 

 tubs! 



The authorities were sedulous, especially in such places as 

 St. Cloud, to keep the pleasant side the pride, the pomp 

 and circumstanceof soldiering in evidence. The happy 

 little town was awakened in the morning, was apprised of 

 noon and again of sundown, by the incredibly joyous "son- 

 neries " of the Landers de I'lmperat rice, whose trumpeters 

 specially gathered from far and wide, could sound all 

 tuckets and points of war in an admirable harmony of high 

 overtones blended with the noble, grave sounds of the 

 ordinary calls. . . . Entrancing music to the little boy, in the 

 glycine-clad house of the rue du Chateau, who would start 

 awake, hearken, and then turn round and go to sleep 

 again in great content. The drums of the garde montante, 

 headed by the olympian tambourmajor, sedulously tossing 

 and twirling his cane, daily rattled the window panes as in 

 great pomp it ascended the hill, palace-wards. It never 

 failed to draw the same crowd to the same doorsteps. 

 Estaffettes clattered hourly along the narrow paved streets, 

 on their way to and from Paris / glittering, clinking, full 

 of official importance, and with an eagerness no doubt 

 wholly uncalled for by any existing necessity. 



All that colour and bustle and pleasant make-believe of 

 strength and " tradition/' was typical of all one has since 



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