“I’ll do my best, your Majesty.”
The photographer too, immediately after his visitor’s departure, hastened away to the temple of Justice, with the tidings that a fellow as mad as a hatter, calling himself king of a republic, had just been at his studio. Another gendarme was at once sent in pursuit.
Meanwhile the object of their solicitude had entered the church of St Servaas. It had struck him that, since his august head ought certainly to be adorned with a crown, he might here find a pattern for the same in painting or sculpture. He remained standing a long time before a picture representing the Adoration of the Magi, but none of the three crowns worn by those royal personages suited his fancy. “They haven’t got points enough,” he muttered, and searched further, but in vain, till at last he came to a statue of the Madonna, which realised his ideal. There was the crown he had always imagined—with points standing straight up all round it.
He delayed not a moment, but hastened out into the street, and entered the first coppersmith’s shop he came to.
“Can you make me a crown like Our Lady’s in St Servaas’s?” he asked.
“Oh! yes, sir. What size do you want it?”
“HIS AUGUST HEAD OUGHT CERTAINLY TO BE ADORNED WITH A CROWN.”
“As big as my head; you can take the measure now.”
“What for? You don’t want to wear it, do you?”