Gasparin, acting upon this idea, caused all the coaches of the fugitive and massacred aristocracy to be brought from their stables, and the carcasses of the dogs were flung into these emblazoned and escutcheoned vehicles of old France. Six grand coaches that had belonged to the king opened the procession, and the tails, heads, bodies and legs of the luckless quadrupeds could be seen behind the glittering glass panels heaped together in wild disorder[8].
[8] Mémoires of the Marchioness de Créqui, vol. viii., p. 10.
After this public canine funeral celebration of the one and indivisible republic, the gilded state-coaches could not be consistently used for any human and less mournful occasion, and hence it was that the consular procession to the Tuileries was so deficient in carriages, and that public hacks on which the numbers were defaced had to be employed.
"With the entry of Bonaparte into the Tuileries the revolution was at an end. He laid his victorious sword across the gory, yawning chasm which had drunk the blood of both aristocrats and democrats; and of that sword he made a bridge over which society might pass from one century to the other, and from the republic to the empire.
As Bonaparte was walking with Josephine and Hortense through the Diana Gallery on the morning after their entry into the Tuileries, and was with them admiring the statuary he had caused to be placed there, both of the ladies possessing much artistic taste, he paused in front of the statue of the younger Brutus, which stood close to the statue of Julius Caesar. He gazed long and earnestly at both of the grave, solemn faces; but, suddenly, as though just awaking from a deep dream, he sharply raised his head, and, laying his hand with an abrupt movement upon Josephine's shoulder, as he looked up at the statue of Brutus with blazing, almost menacing glances, said in a voice that made the hearts of both the ladies bound within their bosoms:
"It is not enough to be in the Tuileries: one must remain there. And whom has not this palace held? Even street thieves and conventionists have occupied it! Did not I see with my own eyes how the savage Jacobins and cohorts of sans-culottes surrounded the palace and led away the good King Louis XVI. as a prisoner! Ah! never mind, Josephine; have no fear for the future! Let them but dare to come hither once more[9]!"
[9] Bourrienne, vol. vi., p. 3.
And, as Bonaparte stood there and thus spoke in front of the statues of Brutus and Julius Caesar, his voice re-echoed like angry thunder through the long gallery, and made the figures of the heroes of the dead republic tremble on their pedestals.