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Updated: May 16, 2025
All of our generals are short-sighted fools, from that ridiculously-over-rated Archduke Charles down to General Schwarzenberg, and whatever the names of these gentlemen may be these gentlemen with the golden epaulets, and decorated breasts, and empty heads I have no confidence in a single one of them.
Massive entrance, heavily guarded, a great lobby, halls with swinging doors, many obsequious schwitzars on the lookout for tips, many poor creatures sitting against the walls on dirty benches, desks and clerks, brilliant boots and epaulets of gay young officers who are telling tales of the Aquarium with great relish. "Monsieur Rouletabille! Ah, yes. Please be seated.
In the nearest clump of reeds we notice several red-winged blackbirds, chattering nervously. A magnificent male bird, black as night, and with scarlet epaulets burning on his shoulders, swoops at us, while his inconspicuous brownish consorts vibrate above the reeds, some with grubs, some empty mouthed. They are invariable indexes of what is below them.
And they jumped to it when a German spoke excepting two of their officers, who refused to take down their epaulets when ordered to do so. We did not learn how they fared. These were the only captive officers of any nationality whom we saw. We became sick of the sight of one another as even the best of friends do under such abnormal conditions.
Mirrors with dingy and broken frames loomed ghost-like up in the dusky corners; tarnished epaulets and sword hilts told pathetically of forgotten honors; there were clocks, tall and stately, without works or pendulum. "Sell?" echoed the proprietor.
He answered neither yes nor no, but swung backwards and forwards on his chair as though he had been tickled, then contentedly stretched himself, while she placed a thick slice on his plate. His red epaulets moved up and down, and his bullet-shaped head, with its huge projecting ears, swayed to and fro over his yellow collar as though it were the head of some Chinese idol.
I had seldom or ever seen so fine a body of men, tall, square, and muscular, the spread of their shoulders set off from their large red worsted epaulets, and the solidity of the mass increased by their wide trowsers, which in my mind contrasted advantageously with the long gaiters and tight integuments of our own brave fellows.
Philippe, who was tired of school, wanted to serve under the Emperor; he saw a review at the Tuileries, the last Napoleon ever held, and he became infatuated with the idea of a soldier's life. In those days military splendor, the show of uniforms, the authority of epaulets, offered irresistible seductions to a certain style of youth.
What can be expected from a court whose deeds are done in the darkness of the recluse courts of the Spanish Inquisition? when that darkness is solemnised by an oath on the Bible? when an oligarchy of epaulets sits upon the bench, and a plebeian top-man, without a jury, stands judicially naked at the bar?
"And now just look at him," continued Mistress Polly pathetically; and they surveyed me sorrowfully, while malicious mischief played around the corners of their eyes. I laughed outright. I could not help it, so droll was the expression on their faces. "True, your ladyship," I said; "the toga does not fit a young man so well as the buckled sabre and glittering epaulets.
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