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The holy head of Louis IX. appears there with his aureola on his head, In the gallery of Francis I., with its nymphs and fauns, amid garlands, fruits, and emblems, one recalls that King and Charles V. who entered the palace by the glided door, and who took part in the great festival in the forest, when nymphs, fauns, and gods seemed to issue from the trunks of oaks to the sound of tambourines, and a band of maidens flung flowers before the feet of the Spanish court.
Beating their tambourines, they shouted wild songs in praise of the fighting-men, singing and answering each other in turn after the manner of the Hebrews. King Saul listened, and his brows grew dark as he heard them praising his brave young captain more than himself. "Saul hath slain his thousands," sweetly sang one band of maidens. "And David his tens of thousands," answered another.
When the worship is made, there is a great gathering, numbers of people come wind instruments, cymbals, tambourines, drums, flags, beggars, devotees, stoics, bearskin-capped shepherd-priests, and as for brahmins, they are without number; they abound wherever you look.
Various musical instruments leaned against the walls of the tent, hand-drums, pipes and lutes and four tambourines lay on the ground; on the vellum of one slept a cat, whose graceful kittens played with the bells in the hoop of another.
The usual choir of men had given place to the waits with their tambourines, though the pipe organ was occasionally used. The mass was long and tedious, and I was chiefly interested in what I think was intended to represent the Star of Bethlehem. This was a great five-pointed star of red and yellow tissue paper, with a tail like a comet.
Presently she came to a by-street, spread with carpets and lighted with hanging lamps, and heard a noise of singing-women and drumming of tambourines. Here she saw a handmaid bearing on her shoulder a boy, clad in trousers laced with silver and a little Aba-cloak of velvet, with a pearl embroidered Tarbush-cap on his head, and about his neck a collar of gold set with jewels.
At this signal, young men dressed in warrior costumes with ribbon-decked bells dangling about their legs came with measured steps from the temple. Their heads were covered by enormous green masks, from which floated triangular red flags, and they, too, carried tambourines. Making a diabolical din, they whirled and danced about the gods seated on the ground.
Filofey continued to whip them. We must get away! I can't account for the fact that, though I had not at first shared Filofey's apprehensions, about this time I suddenly gained the conviction that we really were being followed by highwaymen.... I had heard nothing new: the same tambourines, the same rattle of a cart without a load, the same intermittent whistling, the same confused uproar.... But now I had no doubt.
My dreams were filled with visions of shows, Punch's opera, rope-dancers, tumblers, etc. etc., and my ears rang with the music of fiddles, bugles, tambourines, and bass drums. It was a delicious night with me; but the morning which brought an approach to the reality was still more so.
The King, surprised and astonished, stood like one that was enchanted, and sitting down to rest himself at a table, to his amazement he saw invisibly spread on it a Flanders tablecloth, with dishes full of roast meats and all sorts of viands; so that, in truth, he feasted like a King, waited on by those beautiful children, and all the while he sat at table a concert of lutes and tambourines never ceased such delicious music that it went to the tips of his fingers and toes.
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