A grand review, a military pageant, such as only a Napoleon could call into existence, was once more to show an admiring universe the unrivalled superiority of the French army, when marshalled by the Emperor now representing the greatest of Cesarian dynasties.
The Parisian was overflowing with patriotic emotions; his heart beat fast and vibrated with legitimate pride, as drums and bugles summoned him to witness the glorious spectacle. From all sides the people were streaming towards the Place de la Concorde. There, to your left, if you turn your back on the Obelisk and the fountains, you see the garden of what was then the Turkish Embassy (now a club). It is considerably raised above the level of the Rue Boissy d'Anglais on the one side, and the Avenue Gabrielle on the other. It was a point of vantage from which it must have been quite pleasant for the privileged beau-monde to look down on the struggling plebeian.
Jeanne and Claude had been walking up and down that garden absorbed in earnest conversation. He was bitterly opposed to these military pageants, and with the natural eloquence of conviction, he had been inveighing against the delusions of mankind that culminate in fratricidal warfare. He was particularly hard on Horace Vernet, that panegyrist of the piou-piou, as he called him.
"How can a man lower his art to the level of tunics and red breeches?" he asked. "He's at best a stump orator on canvas, using his brushes to tickle the national pride of the Frenchman! 'L'Empire, c'est la Paix,' indeed! Does it look like it?"
"Well, so far it does," said Mademoiselle Jeanne. "Surely this is a peaceful fête. See how the people enjoy it."
"Yes, mademoiselle, poor blind deluded people! Look again, and fancy that man shot through the heart with a bullet, and that boy on his shoulders pinned to the wall with a bayonet."
"Oh, don't speak like that, Monsieur Claude; you know I'm an abject coward. I should fly to the ends of the earth rather than face danger."
"You are right. I beg your pardon; I know I ought not to conjure up ugly visions, least of all before your eyes, Mademoiselle Jeanne."
"I dare say you think me very foolish, Monsieur Claude, but——"
"Not foolish, mademoiselle; on the contrary, I am grateful to you for pulling me up when I fly off at a tangent as I did just now."