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Had they but known what was passing in the Assembly, Marie Antoinette would in all probability have still found matter for some comfort and hope in the fierce mutual strife of the Jacobins and Girondins, which for some weeks kept the Assembly in a constant state of agitation; and she would have found even greater encouragement in the dissatisfaction which in many departments the people expressed at the late events; and in the conduct of La Fayette's army, which at first cordially approved of and supported the town-council and magistrates of Sedan, who arrested and threw into prison the commissioners whom the Assembly had sent to announce the suspension of the royal authority.
And one-half of the male inhabitants were big or little State functionaries, mostly of a quasi decorative order the treble-singer to the town-council, the court organist, the court poet, and the like each with his deputies and assistants, maintaining, all unbroken, a sleepy ceremonial, to make the hours just noticeable as they slipped away.
Herdegen's seat, at her left hand, was vacant; and she bid her white Brabant hound, as though in jest, to leap into it. The meal was served, but it all went in such gloomy silence that Master Muffel, of the town-council, whom they named Master Gall-Muffel, whispered across the table to my Uncle Christian "was it not strange to give a funeral feast without ever a corpse." Again I shuddered.
When we arrived at the Tolbooth, we were obligated, with others, to halt for some time, by reason of the great crowd at the Kirkgatefoot waiting to see if the magistrates, who were then sitting in council, would come forth and go to the kirk; and the different crafts and burgesses, with their deacons, were standing at the Cross in order to follow them, if they determined, in their public capacity, to sign the Covenant, according to the pious example which had been set to all in authority by the magistrates and town-council of Edinburgh three days before.
The deceased Mukaukas, and the Jacobite members of the town-council even, had shared these feelings and the Arabs had never interfered with the pious sicknurses.
"Fly with this letter, Caxon," said the senior, holding out his missive, signatum atque sigillatum, "fly to Knockwinnock, and bring me back an answer. Go as fast as if the town-council were met and waiting for the provost, and the provost was waiting for his new-powdered wig." "Ah sir," answered the messenger, with a deep sigh, "thae days hae lang gane by.
Never knew I any man who gave so much out of a little, and never have I seen a happier or more peaceful face on a death-bed. My grand-uncle's burial was grand and magnificent. All the town-council, and many of the nobles joined in the funeral-train. Bells tolling and priests chanting, crape, tapers, incense and the rest of it we had more than enough of them all.
No, no; the persons who constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious author of the History of Astronomy, with the philosopher, the writer, the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal academies, an honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him.
He wished to study elsewhere, and by this time he had done so well that one of the artists with whom he had studied went to the mayor of Millet's home town, and begged him to furnish through the town-council money enough to send Millet to Paris. This was done, and Millet began to hope. He was very shy and afraid of seeming awkward and out of place.
Nor were his worshipful father and his younger brethren one whit less dear to me. I was to become a member nay, as the eldest son's wife, the female head of one of the highest families in the town, of one whose sons would have a hand in its government so long as there should be a town-council in Nuremberg.
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