The gallant carpet-knighthood of uniforms was bothering him again. They were dashing, militant, these paladins, a bal masqué of luxurious oddity and color. They twisted waxed moustaches, and their coursers cantered to and fro in the gay parade, and among them only the charro cavaliers with a glitter of spangle let one guess that this could be Mexico. There was the Austrian dragoon with his Tyrolean feather, and the Polish uhlan, fur fringed, and the Hungarian hussar, whose pelisse dangled romantically, and there were some fellows in low boots and tights and high busbies, who were cross-braided on the chest and scroll-embroidered on the front of the leg, and looked exactly like Tzigane bandmasters or lion tamers. The Slav, the Magyar, the Czech, and yet others of the Emperor’s score of native races, all were here out of the nearer Orient, with curved swords and ferocious bearing. There were the countrymen of the Empress, too; the Belgians, who were as bedecked of sleeve as a drum corps. And as to the French, there they were in green and silver, in sky blue, in cuirassier helmets, in the zouave fez, or in any of the other ways in which they bore their chips on the shoulder.
Shelby’s ragged Missourians had tossed on straw for the 245lack of quinine, and yet were presuming to save this gorgeous empire of golden spurred gentlemen. The thought of his mission gave Driscoll an ironic twinge.
But there was the pantalon rouge, the little soldier boy of France who did the work, and the sight of him put the American into a friendly humor. He was everywhere, the little pantalon rouge, streaming the walks, dotting the cafés with red, and every wee piou-piou under the great big epaulettes of a great big comic opera generalissimo. His huge military coat fitted him awkwardly, and the crimson pompon cocked on his little fighting képi was more often awry, and he could not by any effort achieve a strut. He was only bon enfant, this unconquered soldier lad; so he gave over trying to be martial, and left to his officers the rôle of the Gallic rooster, taking it all as a droll joke on himself, while his vivacious eyes danced with fun.
The ambassador’s coach passed under the cypresses and wound round the Aztec hill of the Grasshopper, and came at last to the castle on the summit. And as Guatemotzin had once ventured to this place to plead with Moctezuma to save his empire, and to show him how to do it, so Driscoll now entered the portals of Chapultepec on a very similar errand.
The superb Indian lord was never so hedged in with barbaric ceremony as was his Teuton successor of three centuries later. But Driscoll was patient. He advanced as the red tape gave way, humming under his breath “Green Grows the Grass,” a schottische which the American invaders of ’48 had sung in taking this same fortress, which also had given all Americans the name of “Gringo.”
Guardias Palatinas saluted the Missourian at the entrance. Two Secretaries of Ceremony, Grand Uniform, with cordon and the Imperial eagle, bowed before him in the Gran Patio. One stepped to his right, the other to his left, with all the ceremony of which they were secretaries, and the three walked abreast the length of the Galería de Iturbide, where they were 246joined by the Lesser Service of Honor. Thus, swelling by cumulative degrees of impressiveness, Trooper Driscoll came at last into the Sala de Audiencias, and gazed with admiration at its beautiful Gobelin suite.
The Emperor was there, tall, white browed, refined. He bowed. Driscoll bowed, and started toward him, for they were scarcely in speaking distance. But His Imperial Highness bowed again. He was absent-minded, evidently, but Driscoll bowed also, and pretended not to notice. Then yet a third time the monarch bowed. And with true courtesy the American overlooked what was growing ridiculous, and did likewise. Thus the ritualistic three obeisances were accomplished.
Maximilian dismissed the Lesser Service, and he and his guest were alone. Now Driscoll supposed, considering the discommoding interest his mission had awakened in everybody except in the Emperor, that the Emperor himself would this time be concerned enough to “get down to business.” But not so. There were yet the formalities.
“I understand, Señor Embajador,” Maximilian began in the language of his court, “that Your Excellency––”
“Thank you, sir, but my name is Driscoll.”