“Who is passing, Chevalier, that the people appear so excited?”
“Quely vous motre dio, do you really not know?” exclaimed the Chevalier, “Zat is, graciosa poverisi, zat is ze Kunel Mann, pardieu, ze great Kunel Mann.”
“What!” shouted the veteran, and pulling from his coat the diamond order of “St. George and the Dragon fly” which blazed among an hundred others upon his breast, he rose in his coach and flung it gracefully to the Colonel, who caught it quite as gracefully upon the fly. At this moment a great shout arose. The populace imagined that a shot had been fired at the Colonel, that an attempt had been made to assassinate their pet hero.THE PET OF
THE POPULACE. The mob rushed for the carriage which contained the veteran, with cries of “kill him,” etc. etc. The Colonel took in the situation at a glance. Rising in his stirrups he spread wide his arms to show he was uninjured.
“Hold,” he shouted, in that same voice of loud and deep toned beauty which oft had brought the briny tears to eyes of hardened criminals in the dock, “Hold; he is my friend: he has given me this badge (‘Cape May diamonds,’ he added sotto voce); who touches a hair of his bald head, dies like a dog—march on,” he said.
The cries for vengeance changed to wild cheers of joy, and the procession moved on.
The Foreign Divisions followed the Pennsylvanians in rotation adopted by lot. The Caledonian club was a marked feature of the English Division among which it was numbered, being the only representation from Scotland. The members appeared in full Highland costume, kilt, sash, and checker-board stockings. The chiefs danced the Highland Fling all along the route to the inspiring strains of the regimental bagpipes. The company of Orangemen with their Lemon aids was also a part of this division; they were commanded by Col. Terrence McDougall.
The brigade of French Chasseurs in the Fifth Division, commanded by Marshal Benzine, presented a splendid appearance, and wore the strings of doughnuts which were thrown around their shoulders with a truly fascinating French abandon.
The “French Lancers,” in the same division, danced the quadrille named after them at each lamp-post along the line.
A number of survivors of the late French war were carried along in Sedan chairs. This must have been a sad sight for Frenchmen. We are not Frenchmen.
The German Landsturm soldiers were artistically decorated with pretzels and oranges. Their division was preceded by the Emperor William and his family, drawn in one of the ambulances of the German Hospital, the horses being appropriately decorated with German and American bunting.