The Christmas kalends of Provence and some other . g massresolved into individual hurrying figures—as it passed beneath the hanging lamp, andin the same breath sw^ept around the pro-jecting corner and lost to view. It looked, atthe very least, treasons, conspiracies, andmutinous outbursts — that shadowy multi-tude surging up that narrow and steep anddesperately crooked dusky footway. I feltthat just around the lighted turn, where theimpetuous forms appeared clearly in themoment of their disappearance, surely mustbe the royal palace they were bent upon sack-ing; and it w^as with a sigh of unsat
The Christmas kalends of Provence and some other . g massresolved into individual hurrying figures—as it passed beneath the hanging lamp, andin the same breath sw^ept around the pro-jecting corner and lost to view. It looked, atthe very least, treasons, conspiracies, andmutinous outbursts — that shadowy multi-tude surging up that narrow and steep anddesperately crooked dusky footway. I feltthat just around the lighted turn, where theimpetuous forms appeared clearly in themoment of their disappearance, surely mustbe the royal palace they were bent upon sack-ing; and it w^as with a sigh of unsatisfiedlonging that I turned away (when we got atlast the right direction) before word came tome that over the swords of his dying guards-men they had pressed in and slain the king!The soldiers on guard at the ascent, andthickly posted on the hill-side above the high-est tiers, gave colour to my fancy. And, actu-ally, it was as guards against assassins thatthe soldiers were there. Only a little morethan two months had passed since the slay-236. IT LOOKED TREASONS, CONSPIRACIES AND MUTI-NOUS OUTBURSTS Cbe eotn^die Trancaise at Orattdc ing of President Carnot at Lyons; and thecautionary measures taken to assure thesafety of the three ministers at Orange were allthe more rigid because one of them was theminister of justice—of all the governmentfunctionaries the most feared and hated b}^anarchists, because he is most intimatelyassociated with those too rare occasionswhen anarchist heads are sliced off in poorpayment for anarchist crimes. This under-current of real tragedy—with its possibilityof a crash, followed by a cloud of smoke ris-ing slowly above the wreck of the gaily dec-orated ministerial box—drew out with a fineintensit}^ the tragedy of the stage: and broughtinto a curious psychological coalescence thebarbarisms of the dawn and of the noontimeof our human world. VI We came again to the front of the theatre :to an entrance — approached between con-verging railin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1902
