and you may see the
gigantic figure of Charlemagne, his brows level and his long white
beard tangled like an undergrowth, having in his left hand the
globe, and in his right the hilt of an unconquerable sword. There
also are the short strong horsemen of the Robertian House, half
hidden by their leather shields, and their sons before them
growing in vestment and majesty and taking on the pomp of the
Middle Ages; Louis VII., all covered with iron; Philip, the
Conqueror; Louis IX., who alone is surrounded with light: they
stand in a widening, interminable procession, this great crowd of
kings; they loose their armour, they take their ermine on, they
are accompanied by their captains and their marshals; at last, in
their attitude and in their magnificence they sum up in themselves
the pride and the achievement of the French nation.

"But Time has dissipated what it could not tarnish, and the
process of a thousand years has turned these mighty figures into
unsubstantial things. You may see them in the grey end of
darkness, like a pageant, all standing still. You look again, but
with the growing light, and with the wind that rises before
morning, they have disappeared."

* * * * *

"There is a legend among the peasants in Russia of a certain
sombre, mounted figure, unreal, only an outline and a cloud, that
passed away to Asia, to the east and to the north. They saw him
move along their snows, through the long mysterious twilights of
the northern autumn, in silence, with the head bent and the reins
in the left hand loose, following some enduring purpose, reaching
towards an ancient solitude and repose. They say it was Napoleon.

"After him there trailed for days the shadows of the soldiery,
vague mists bearing faintly the forms of companies of men. It was
as though the cannon smoke at Waterloo, borne on the light west
wind of that June day, had received the spirits of twenty years
of combat, and had drifted farther and farther during the fall of
the year over the endless plains.

"But there was no voice and no order. The terrible tramp of the
Guard, and the sound that Heine loved, the dance of the French
drums, was extinguished; there was no echo of their songs, for the
army was of ghosts and was defeated. They passed in the silence
which we ca