"The various corps of the urban guards in their best clothes; the strangeness of the rural guards, with a large number of Napoleon's old soldiers in their ranks with their original uniforms; the intrepid seamen of Cayeux carrying in triumph their fishing prizes, ten old tricolour banners; the sailors, with their carbines, bandoliers and cutlasses in their hands, all made the gayest of spectacles, and the picturesque fête delighted the King and the officers of his staff."
There Jean Valines' book concluded, but Aurelle, while watching the garden fading slowly in the twilight, amused himself by imagining what followed. A visit from Lamartine, no doubt; then one from Napoleon III, the triumphal arches and inscriptions, and quite lately, perhaps, Carnot or Fallières receiving from the mayor, in the square of Saint-Ferréol, the assurance of the unalterable devotion of the faithful people of Estrées to the Republic. Then in the future: unknown governors, the decorations, perhaps red, perhaps blue, until the day when some blind god would come and crush with his heel this venerable human ant-hill.
"And each time," he mused, "the enthusiasm is sincere and the vows loyal, and these honest tradesmen rejoice to see passing through their ancient portals the new rulers, in the choice of whom they have had no part.
"Happy province! You quietly accept the Empires which Paris brings forth with pain, and the downfall of a government means no more to you than changing the words of a speech or the flowers on a silver dish. If Dr. O'Grady were here he would quote Ecclesiastes to me."
He tried to remember it:
"What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever.
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."
"Aurelle," said Colonel Musgrave, who had quietly approached, "if you want to see the bombardment after dinner, go up to the top of the hill. The sky is all lit up. We attack to-morrow morning."
And a distant muffled thundering floated on the calm evening air. A melancholy and ancient peal of bells rang out from the Spanish belfry in the market-place. The first stars twinkled above the two ironical towers of the church of Saint-Ferréol and the proud old town fell asleep to the familiar sound of battle.