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Far to the right lay what had once been called horresco referens the duckpond, where "Dulce sonant tenui gutture carmen aves." But the ruthless ingenuity of the head-artificer had converted the duck-pond into a Swiss lake, despite grievous wrong and sorrow to the assuetum innocuumque genus, the familiar and harmless inhabitants, who had been all expatriated and banished from their native waves.
Two things had greatly disgusted him with Lisle Court, trifles they might be with others, but they were not trifles to Cuthbert Maltravers; in the first place, a man who had been his father's attorney, and who was the very incarnation of coarse unrepellable familiarity, had bought an estate close by the said Lisle Court, and had, horresco referens, been made a baronet!
This, too, was invaded, and for more than two hours I remained there. The spectacle was a curious one everybody was shouting, everybody was writing a list of a new Government and reading it aloud. In one corner a man incessantly blew a trumpet, in another a patriot beat a drum. At one end was a table, round which the mayors had been sitting, and from this vantage ground Felix Pyat and other virtuous citizens harangued, and, as I understood, proclaimed the Commune and themselves, for it was impossible to distinguish a word. The atmosphere was stifling, and at last I got out of a window on to the landing in the courtyard. Here citizens had established themselves everywhere. I had the pleasure to see the "venerable" Blanqui led up the steps by his admirers. This venerable man had, horresco referens, been pushed up in a corner, where certain citizens had kicked his venerable frame, and pulled his venerable white beard, before they had recognised who he was. By this time it appeared to be understood that a Government had been constituted, consisting of Blanqui, Ledru-Rollin, Delescluze, Louis Blanc, Flourens, and others. Flourens, whom I now perceived for the first time, went through a corridor, with some armed men, and I and others followed him. We got first into an antechamber, and then into a large room, where a great row was going on. I did not get farther than close to the door, and consequently could not well distinguish what was passing, but I saw Flourens standing on a table, and I heard that he was calling upon the members of the Government of National Defence, who were seated round it, to resign, and that Jules Favre was refusing to do so. After a scene of confusion, which lasted half an hour, I found myself, with those round me, pushed out of the room, and I heard that the old Government had been arrested, and that a consultation was to take place between it and the new one. Feeling hungry, I now went to the door of the Hôtel to get out, but I was told I could not do so without a permission from the citizen Blanqui. I observed that I was far too independent a citizen myself to ask any one for a permit to go where I liked, and, as I walked on, the citizen sentinel did not venture to stop me. As I passed before Trochu's headquarters at the Louvre I spoke to a captain of the Etat-Major, whom I knew, and whom I saw standing at the gate. When he heard that I had just come from the Hôtel de Ville, he anxiously asked me what was going on there, and whether I had seen Trochu. General Schmitz, he said, had received an order signed by the mayors of Paris to close the gates of the town, and not on any pretext to let any one in or out. At the Louvre he said all was in confusion, but he understood that Picard had escaped from the Hôtel de Ville, and was organizing a counter-movement at the Ministry of Finance. Having dined, I went off to the Place Vendôme, as the generale was beating. The National Guards of the quarter were hurrying there, and Mobile battalions were marching in the same direction. I found on my arrival that this had become the headquarters of the Government; that an officer who had come with an order to Picard to go to the Hôtel de Ville, signed by Blanqui, had been arrested. General Tamisier was still a prisoner with the Government. Soon news arrived that a battalion had got inside the Hôtel de Ville and had managed to smuggle Trochu out by a back door. Off I went to the Louvre. There Trochu, his uniform considerably deteriorated, was haranguing some battalions of the Mobiles, who were shouting "Vive Trochu!" Other battalions were marching down the Rue Rivoli to the Hôtel de Ville. I got into a cab and drove there. The Hôtel was lit up. On the "place" there were not many persons, but all round it, in the streets, were Mobiles and Bourgeois National Guards, about 20,000 in all. The Hôtel was guarded, I heard, by a Belleville battalion, but I could not get close in to interview them. This lasted until about two o'clock in the morning, when the battalions closed in, Trochu appeared with his staff, and in some way or other, for it was so dark, nothing could be seen, the new Government was ejected; M. Jules Favre and his colleagues were rescued. M. Delescluze, who was one of the persons there, thus describes what took place: "A declaration was signed by the new Government declaring that on the understanding that the Commune was to be elected the next day, and also the Provisional Government replaced by an elected one, the citizens designed at a public meeting to superintend these elections withdrew." This was communicated first to Dorian, who appears to have been half a prisoner, half a friend; then to the members of the old Government, who were in honourable arrest; then to Jules Ferry outside. A general sort of agreement appears then to have been made, that bygones should be bygones. The Revolutionists went off to bed, and matters returned to the point where they had been in the morning. Yesterday evening a decree was placarded, ordering the municipal elections to take place to-day, signed Etienne Arago; and to-day a counter-decree, signed Jules Favre, announces that this decree appeared when the Government was gardé
One apophthegm only stands upon record. When an objection, raised against his inscription for Shakespeare, was defended by the authority of Patrick, he replied, horresco referens, that he "would allow the publisher of a dictionary to know the meaning of a single word, but not of two words put together." He was fretful and easily displeased, and allowed himself to be capriciously resentful.
Low boys shouted after us or if it was not after us, I thought it was and that their cry was "Stop thief!" Enough said of one of the most unpleasant cab-drives I ever had in my life. Horresco referens. At the bank, however, thanks to the foresight and liberality of Raffles, all was smooth water.
I have cause to believe, from certain allusions I have heard, that many of these chignons are not natural. There are women, most worthy daughters of Eve, who purchase for gold the hair horyesco referens of the wretched or the dead. It sickens one. "It is excessively hot, my dear cousin," said she, fanning herself.
In this age of enlightenment, innovation has no respect for the most sacred institutions of antiquity. The burghers, for the only time since their creation as a body, were cast first into doubt, and secondly into rebellion. The Lufton faction, horresco referens, were triumphant, and the rival candidate was returned. From that hour the Borough of Buyemall was open to all the world.
Far be it from them: though indeed either of these had been esteemed light in the balance compared with their real crime. "Then, what was their failing come, tell it, and burn ye?" They actually, "horresco referens," quizzed the Major coram the whole mess! Now, Major John Jones had only lately exchanged into the North Cork from the "Darry Ragement," as he called it.
Even so, I should not have ventured on poetry if Virgil had not indicated that he wished it to be done. Inspired, therefore, by his divine influence, I have approached my slender theme." The verses are good, though their poetical merit is somewhat on the level of a university prize poem. They conclude thus: "Hactenus arvorum cultus Silvine docebam Siderei referens vatis praecepta Maronis."
But, horresco referens! excuse the recondite quotation at the same moment the form of the colonel appeared, looking over the heads of all before him right in at the drawing-room door, and full at the young sinners, who had heard no sound along the matted passage. "Here's a go!" said I to myself not aloud, observe, for it was slang.
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