Imperial!'"--and the last cry was yet more prolonged than the others,
as if to affirm the dynasty.

"Certainly I can imagine no Court in the old days of chivalry more
splendid than the audience in that grand hall of the Louvre. To the
right of the throne all the ambassadors of the civilised world in the
blaze of their rich costumes and manifold orders. In the gallery at the
left, yet more behind, the dresses and jewels of the dames d'honneur and
of the great officers of State. And when the Empress rose to depart,
certainly my fancy cannot picture a more queenlike image, or one that
seemed more in unison with the representation of royal pomp and power.
The very dress, of colour which would have been fatal to the beauty of
most women equally fair--a deep golden colour--(Valerie profanely called
it buff)--seemed so to suit the splendour of the ceremony and the day; it
seemed as if that stately form stood in the midst of a sunlight reflected
from itself. Day seemed darkened when that sunlight passed away.

"I fear you will think I have suddenly grown servile to the gauds and
shows of mere royalty. I ask myself if that be so--I think not. Surely
it is a higher sense of greatness which has been impressed on me by the
pageant of to-day I feel as if there were brought vividly before me the
majesty of France, through the representation of the ruler she has
crowned.

"I feel also as if there, in that hall, I found a refuge from all the
warring contests in which no two seem to me in agreement as to the sort
of government to be established in place of the present. The 'Liberty'
clamoured for by one would cut the throat of the 'Liberty' worshipped by
another.