However, before he was to enter upon his new duties, all sorts of things were destined to happen, with the tendency to make Walter appear as a “hero of romance,” which he wasn’t at all.
Chapter XXV
It was Thursday. Stoffel came home with the important news that the king—I don’t know what king—had arrived in the city unexpectedly and would visit the theatre that evening. Everything and everybody was in a commotion; for in republican countries much importance is given to pomp and title.
This time curiosity was more wrought up than usual. Many foreign princes, including an emperor, were visiting the king; and these distinguished personages would follow the court to Amsterdam, coming from The Hague, Utrecht and Haarlem. To put it tamely, it was to be a great occasion.
That republican populace was to get to see the countenance and coat-tails not only of their tyrant, but also the countenances and coat-tails of many other tyrants, not to mention female tyrants.
The old doughnut women on the “Dam,” which the city rented to them as a market-place, were threatening to bring suit against the city. They felt that it was hard to have to pay rent for the fresh air, day after day, with the prospect of selling a few doughnuts to the youth of the street, and now be run out because his majesty wanted to exhibit himself to the people from the balcony of the old City Hall.
Why shouldn’t the old women be seen at their accustomed places? Must the doughnut industry be carried on secretly? Was it for fear of imitations and unprincely competition? Or was it to keep the old women from seeing the king?
At any rate, the whole kit of them had to leave. At most, they could only mix with the crowd incognito, and afterwards might join in the prearranged “Long live the King!” or somebody else, as the case might be.
It is really remarkable that princes die. Seemingly the “vivats” are of no avail.