[Enter a fat priest who bustles up to the drum-major.]
Fat priest—"Taisez-vous."
Little drummer—Rub-dub-dub—rub-dub-dub—rub-dub-dub, &c.
Drum-major—"Qu'est-ce donc?"
Fat priest—"Taisez-vous, dis-je; ce n'est pas le corps. Il n'arrivera pas—pour une heure."
The little drums were instantly hushed, the procession turned to the right-about, and walked back to the altar again, the blown-out candle that had been on the near side of us before was now on the off side, the National Guards set down their muskets and began at their sandwiches again. We had to wait an hour and a half at least before the great procession arrived. The guns without went on booming all the while at intervals, and as we heard each, the audience gave a kind of "ahahah!" such as you hear when the rockets go up at Vauxhall.
At last the real Procession came.
Then the drums began to beat as formerly, the Nationals to get under arms, the clergymen were sent for and went, and presently—yes, there was the tall cross-bearer at the head of the procession, and they came BACK!
They chanted something in a weak, snuffling, lugubrious manner, to the melancholy bray of a serpent.
Crash! however, Mr. Habeneck and the fiddlers in the organ loft pealed out a wild shrill march, which stopped the reverend gentlemen, and in the midst of this music—