d, a
mighty hand, one of those two hands that had tamed the hydra of
anarchy, and quelled the feud of nations; and now it patted
good-temperedly his horse's neck. His face, too, was of the same hue
that we see in marble busts of Greeks and Romans; the features wore
the same expression of calm dignity that the ancients have, and on it
was written, "Thou shalt have none other gods but me." A smile that
warmed and calmed every heart played about his lips, and yet we know
that those lips had only to whistle and--"_la Prusse n'existait
plus_"; those lips had only to whistle, and clericalism died like an
echo; those lips had only to whistle to set dancing the Holy Roman
Empire. And now those lips smiled, and his eye smiled--an eye clear
as heaven, an eye that read men's hearts, an eye that at a glance
embraced all earthly things, while we mortals see them only one by
one, and only the painted shadows. The brow was not so clear; it was
haunted by the ghosts of coming battles, and at times a frown passed
across it; these frowns were the creative thoughts, seven-league-boot
thoughts, with which the Emperor's mind strode invisible over the
world--and I fancy each of these thoughts would have furnished a
German writer with materials to employ his whole life.

The Emperor rode calmly down the alley; no policeman stopt his way;
behind him, on snorting chargers, bedizened with gold and jewels, rode
his retinue; the drums beat, the trumpets blared; at my side mad
Aloysius spun round and round, and clattered out the names of his
generals; close by drunken Gumpertz bellowed, and the people shouted
with a thousand voices, "Long live the Emperor!"

The Emperor is dead. On a desolate island in the Atlantic is his
lonely grave, and he for whom the earth was all too narrow rests
peacefully beneath the hillock where five weeping willows droop their
green tresses in agonized despair, and a tender-hearted rivulet
ripples by with melancholy plaint. There is no inscription on the
tombstone, but Clio has graven thereon, in invisible letters, her just
sentence that will echo through the centuries like spirit voices.

Britannia! thou art queen of the ocean, but all great Neptune's ocean
can not wash from thee the stain that the dead Emperor bequeathed thee
on his deathbed. Not that windbag Sir Hudson, but thou thyself wast
the Sicilian sbirro whom the allied sovereigns suborned to avenge in
secret on the man of the people what the people had once