Nothing could have pleased Maximilian more, and he looked at the good priest with an awakening favor. “Then 139let it be this afternoon,” he commanded. “I will stand their sponsor.”
“––Before God, who will bless Your Majesty,” murmured the priest.
And to be brief, let it be recorded that they were baptized by the hundred, with hurried pomp–“pompes à incendie,” as the godfather himself described it.
140CHAPTER XVII
Rather a Small Man
“Besides the queene, he dearly loved a fair and comely dame.”
–The Ballad of Fair Rosamond.
Jacqueline was protesting to a worried personage in Grand Uniform. The personage was the Cerberus of the Emperor’s antechamber, and he barred her way. He was newly a personage, and did not know Jacqueline.
“But, Señor Oficial de Ordenes,” she insisted, “don’t you see that if I put my name in your old register there, the man will be shot while your Dignitaries are deciding to grant my audience!”
“Shot?” vaguely repeated the monarchial flunkey. He was a Mexican, and took his unfamiliar responsibilities seriously. He turned to the Book of Court Etiquette on the centre table.