change, no theatrical effect, which was not obliged to mount
that ladder. Innocent and venerable infancy of art and
contrivances!

Four of the bailiff of the palace's sergeants, perfunctory
guardians of all the pleasures of the people, on days of festival
as well as on days of execution, stood at the four corners
of the marble table.

The piece was only to begin with the twelfth stroke of the
great palace clock sounding midday. It was very late, no
doubt, for a theatrical representation, but they had been
obliged to fix the hour to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.

Now, this whole multitude had been waiting since morning.
A goodly number of curious, good people had been shivering
since daybreak before the grand staircase of the palace;
some even affirmed that they had passed the night across
the threshold of the great door, in order to make sure that
they should be the first to pass in. The crowd grew more
dense every moment, and, like water, which rises above its
normal level, began to mount along the walls, to swell around
the pillars, to spread out on the entablatures, on the cornices,
on the window-sills, on all the salient points of the architecture,
on all the reliefs of the sculpture. Hence, discomfort,
impatience, weariness, the liberty of a day of cynicism and
folly, the quarrels which break forth for all sorts of causes--a
pointed elbow, an iron-shod shoe, the fatigue of long waiting--had
already, long before the hour appointed for the
arrival of the ambassadors, imparted a harsh and bitter