As we drove, slow and wedge-like, into the gloomy vault, the howls of the mass reverberated. I seemed seething in the Pit with the Lost. On and on, through the dark and damp, and then up a stone stairway to a wide portal; when, diffusing, the pestiferous mob poured in bright day between painted walls and beneath a painted dome. I thought of the anarchic sack of Versailles.
A few moments more and I stood bewildered among the beggars in the famous Guildhall.
Where I stood—where the thronged rabble stood, less than twelve hours before sat His Imperial Majesty, Alexander of Russia; His Royal Majesty, Frederick William, King of Prussia; His Royal Highness, George, Prince Regent of England; His world-renowned Grace, the Duke of Wellington; with a mob of magnificoes, made up of conquering field marshals, earls, counts, and innumerable other nobles of mark.
The walls swept to and fro, like the foliage of a forest with blazonings of conquerors’ flags. Naught outside the hall was visible. No windows were within four-and-twenty feet of the floor. Cut off from all other sights, I was hemmed in by one splendid spectacle—splendid, I mean, everywhere, but as the eye fell toward the floor. That was foul as a hovel’s—as a kennel’s; the naked boards being strewed with the smaller and more wasteful fragments of the feast, while the two long parallel lines, up and down the hall, of now unrobed, shabby, dirty pine-tables were piled with less trampled wrecks. The dyed banners were in keeping with the last night’s kings: the floor suited the beggars of to-day. The banners looked upon the floor as from his balcony Dives upon Lazarus. A line of liveried men kept back with their staves the impatient jam of the mob, who, otherwise, might have instantaneously converted the Charity into a Pillage. Another body of gowned and gilded officials distributed the broken meats—the cold victuals and crumbs of kings. One after another the beggars held up their dirty blue tickets, and were served with the plundered wreck of a pheasant, or the rim of a pasty—like the detached crown of an old hat—the solids and meats stolen out.
“What a noble charity,” whispered my guide. “See that pasty now, snatched by that pale girl; I dare say the Emperor of Russia ate of that last night.”
“Very probably,” murmured I; “it looks as though some omnivorous emperor or other had had a finger in that pie.”
“And see yon pheasant too—there—that one—the boy in the torn shirt has it now—look! The Prince Regent might have dined off that.”
The two breasts were gouged ruthlessly out, exposing the bare bones, embellished with the untouched pinions and legs.
“Yes, who knows!” said my guide, “his Royal Highness the Prince Regent might have eaten of that identical pheasant.”
“I don’t doubt it,” murmured I, “he is said to be uncommonly fond of the breast. But where is Napoleon’s head in a charger? I should fancy that ought to have been the principal dish.”