She smiled sadly, stroked his cheek, and, drawing down his face to her, she kissed him. He looked such a splendid sunny fellow in his Roman armour:
“No, dear heart,” she whispered—“I, Babette, have been preaching the sermon.”
Horace laughed....
Thus they feasted, danced, and sang until the golden yellow lights of the great hall paled and became but flickering ghosts of flame as the sapphire shadow of the night passed away in blue and purple and lilac before the white dawn. But the students danced on into the daylight....
At last the musicians came down to the floor, and bursting into a triumphant march, the vast crowd of revellers formed into procession, and streamed out after the music into the fresh air of the early morning.
In the streets the early concierges that stood yawning at their gates, stopped their clacking tongues, cut short their scandals, and gaped at the din; the street-sweepers rested from their sordid calling; rag-pickers from their grimy traffic amongst the dust-bins—for an invading army, gorgeously apparelled, was taking possession of Paris, swarming down her thoroughfares in triumphal splendour, and Bellona, goddess of war, thundered and rattled and swayed behind, dragged at the tail of the frantic riot. Street after street, the sleepy city awoke uneasily and put drowsy heads out of window, vaguely fearful of catastrophe and dread that the devil of revolution had taken possession of the place.
As the stream of revellers poured down the heights, they seized all cabs, and putting their helmets on the heads of the protesting coachmen, Greek warriors danced wildly on the tops of the cabs, adding the rattle of wheels and the cracking of whips to the din.
With shout and yell they captured a number of great drays laden with stone, and pulling down the drivers from their seats and dispossessing the teamsters, Roman charioteers took the reins and sent the great horses trotting and pounding clumsily along at the tail of the gay procession, adding the thunder of their passage to the tumult.
With song and yell and laughter and skylarking and jovial horseplay, they burst upon the great square of the Opera, swarmed up the broad steps, and setting the band in their midst, they took hands and danced in a mighty circle round and round the place....
They got moving again, in gorgeous procession, and headed towards the Louvre, singing student songs, and cheering.