In
this hall the two Napoleons were proclaimed; and the brilliant memory of
those summer festivals that lately made St. Cloud dazzling with light and
beauty, was reflected from mirror, cornice, and tinted fabric; from this
gilt on the iron chain of usurped dominion, a glance through the window
revealed its origin: a throng of people were on their way to mass and a
regiment was on parade--the one illustrating the blind exaction of bigoted
authority, the other the machinery of brute force--the church and the
army, the mitre, and the sword, superstition and violence; with these, in
all ages, have the multitude been subdued; and between these two
representations of elemental despotism, clustered on a high wall, stood a
crowd to watch the meek procession of worshippers, and the exactitude of
the manual, or admire the spirited, yet controlled, evolutions of the
officer on his noble charger. The whole scene typified France as she is;
uneducated devotees, a military organization at the beck of its chief, and
a surplus of curious, intimidated or acquiescent spectators.
To pass from St. Cloud to Versailles is like turning from the last to the
first chapters of French history.
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