But one sign of the trend of popular resentment etched itself as by a biting acid on her memory. When the sulky driver of the ramshackle vehicle pulled up in the Avenue of the Champs Élysées, in obedience to the upraised sword-arm and authoritative voice of a lieutenant of mounted Chasseurs, Juliette, thrilling with girlish delight at the sight of the dear, familiar uniform, let down the window and thrust forth her charming head. And at that moment a party of four equestrians, followed by two grooms in the Imperial livery, came galloping westward, from the direction of the Pont Royal.
Pray picture to yourself the congested condition of this part of the Avenue, the squadron blocking its throat, the halted cab, and the lengthy queue of phaetons, Americaines, britzkas, dogcarts, and Victorias, forming up on the left hand of the road to rear of it, containing ladies old and young, pretty or plain, accompanied by the males of their species; while nursemaids pushing babies in perambulators, elderly gentlemen out for constitutionals, and other harmless pedestrians, were marshaled on the right, under the surveillance of imperious policemen, who meddled not at all with certain isolated clumps of somber-looking persons dressed in black; broken links of one of the huge processions of mourners, checked upon their way to the Cemetery at Neuilly.
There was a stir of interest, and every eye was drawn to the little cavalcade, previously mentioned, whose leaders, seeing the barrier of humanity, horseflesh and steel drawn across the thoroughfare, checked their horses and came forward at a walk. Military Governor was written large upon a double-chinned, stiff-necked, gray-mustached and imperialed personage who bestrode a high-actioned brown charger, and wore the undress uniform of a General of Division of the Service of Engineers. When he leaned to speak in the ear of the slender, brown-haired, blue-eyed boy who rode upon his right hand, you saw in the wearer of the glossy silk topper, the accurately cut, single-breasted black coat and dark gray-strapped trousers—ending in the daintiest of little polished boots, with gold spurs—the heir of the Imperial throne of France.
A cocked-hatted, white-plumed Imperial aide-de-camp in blue-and-gold, and a green-and-silver Palace equerry followed in attendance, succeeded at a respectful distance by two grooms in the livery of the Tuileries; and a troop of the glorious beings known as Cent Gardes came clattering after, balanced to a hair on their shiny, prancing black horses, the long white horse-tails streaming from their polished steel helmets, with tricolored side-plumes and eagled brass plates, their brass-nutted steel cuirasses reflecting their lacquered mustaches and the adoring glances of enamored femininity, their sky-blue tunics with the scarlet and golden collars, their golden epaulettes and aiguillettes, their gauntleted gloves of white leather, their skin-tight breeches of snowy buckskin, their brilliantly polished boots with huge brass roweled, steel-spiked spurs, glancing and dancing, clinking and twinkling in the sun.
Ah me! Their morals were doubtful, those mustached and chin-tufted Antinouses of the Guard, as not only giddy work-girls and milliners, but fast variety actresses and frisky ladies of fashion were perfectly aware. But they were splendid, stately, expensive creatures, and so worthy to clatter at Imperial heels.
And so gallant was the youthful figure they attended and guarded; so well-graced the seat upon the spirited English chestnut, so light the boyish hand upon the mare's snaffle-rein, so frank and debonair the smile with which he acknowledged the scanty salutations of a few of the bystanders; that Juliette's heart flew to him with her eyes, and there broke from her in a voice so clear and thrilling that the object of her homage started in his saddle:
"Vive le Prince! Vive le Prince Impérial!"
The French are tender to youth and beauty, accessible to sentiment, lovers of Romance. Other voices joined in the cry, hats not ominously furbished with crape were lifted in salutation; a charming dignity was manifested in the boy's reception of these tokens of good-will.
You can conceive the picture, set in the beautiful scenery of the Champs Élysées, to the roll of carriages in the great avenues, the glint of wintry sunshine on still or leaping water, the nip of keen sweet air, perfumed with the scent of damp grass and dead leaves and wood-smoke. Delicate tracery of branches as yet bare, interspersed with the hardy green of pines, laurels, and larches against a sky pale blue as harebell, streaked with broad floating scarves of gray-white vapor, made a background for the green-jacketed, red-breeched Chasseurs on their bony, brown horses,—for the knots of strollers, curious or contemptuous,—for the broken masses of the crowd of would-be demonstrators, arrested in their progress by the blocking of the way. In the right foreground suppose the slim young Napoleon sitting easily on the fidgety, fretful chestnut,—the Military General balanced on his big champing charger,—the blue-and-gold aide and the green-and-silver equerry, the grooms and the escort of Cent Gardes looking decorously between the ears of their well-trained, shining beasts. To the left place the debilitated fiacre with its weary Rosinante and red-nosed sulky Jehu, and leaning from the open window of the vehicle—Juliette.
Perhaps you can see her, a little toque of Persian lambskin, with a blue wing in it, on her high-piled hair,—with a coquettish jacket of corduroy-velvet of the shade known in the spring of that year as Bismarck gray,—trimmed with the lambskin, fitting close to her slender shape. She wore a plain black silk skirt looped high over a vivid red cloth petticoat—it was a fashionable style of costume that year—and very much worn. A bright rose bloomed in each cheek, pale as she was ordinarily; and her black brows were spread and lifted joyously, and her eyes shone blue as sapphires in contrast with a little knot of violets at her breast and the big bunch held in her little gray-gloved hand. And with a very fair aim she threw the latter so that the bundle of wet fragrance lightly hit the saddleflap close to the knee of the Imperial stripling, and behind the shoulder of the swerving chestnut, as she cried again: