Chapter Thirteen.
There never was a finer morning in the world than that appointed for the review. It was just the end of May, and all the scenery, even in the very suburbs of the great city, was brilliant with all the characteristic beauty of an English landscape.
The fine horse-chestnut trees and the thick hawthorn hedges were all in full bloom, and the air was perfectly scented with perfumes from the innumerable nursery grounds which hedge in that side of London with a belt of flowers.
The parks, and the suburban roads were crowded with neatly-dressed, modest-looking nurses and nursery-maids, leading whole troops of rosy-cheeked, brown-curled, merry boys and girls to enjoy the fresh morning air; and Auguste was never tired, as we drove along, of admiring everything that met his eyes in quick succession.
The trees, the flowery hedges, the gay parterres, the glimpses of the noble Thames white with the sails of innumerable craft, the beautiful villas with their small highly cultivated pleasure-grounds, the pretty nursery-maids, and happy English children, all came in for a share of his rapturous admiration; and so vivacious and original were his comments on all that he saw, that he in some sort communicated the infection of his merry humour to us also, and we were all as gay and joyous as the season and the scene.
When we came to the ground destined for the review, my brother was silent, and I saw his cheek turn pale for a moment; but his eye brightened and flashed as it ran over the splendid lines of the cavalry, which, at the moment we came upon the ground, were parading past the royal personage in honour of whom the review was given, and who was on horseback, by the side of a somewhat slender elderly gentleman, dressed in the uniform of a field-marshal, whose eagle eye and aquiline nose announced him, at a glance, the vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre.
“Magnifique, mais c’est vraiment magnifique,” muttered my brother to himself, as the superb life-guards swept along with their polished steel helmets and breast-plates glittering like silver in the sunshine, and their plumes and guidons flashing and twinkling in the breeze. “Dieu de dieu! qu’ils sont géants les cavaliers, qu’ils sont colossaux les chevaux. Et les allures si lestes, si gracieuses, comme s’ils n’étaient que des juments. Mais c’est un spectacle magnifique!”
A moment afterwards, a regiment of lancers passed at a trot, with their pennons fluttering in the breeze, and their lance-heads glimmering like stars above the clouds of dust which rose from under their horses’ hoofs; and these were followed by several squadrons of hussars, with their crimson trousers and their gaily furred pelisses, and then troop after troop of horse-artillery clattering along, the high-bred horses whirling the heavy guns and caissons behind them as if they had been mere playthings.