orseback had hard ado to keep his countenance
at the words. You never saw anything so cheerful and spontaneous as
their gait; schoolboys do not look more eagerly at hare and hounds; and
you would have thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers.

My great delight in Compiegne was the town-hall. I doted upon the
town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic insecurity, all turreted, and
gargoyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a score of architectural
fancies. Some of the niches are gilt and painted; and in a great square
panel in the centre, in black relief on a gilt ground, Louis XII. rides
upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip and head thrown back. There is
royal arrogance in every line of him; the stirruped foot projects
insolently from the frame; the eye is hard and proud; the very horse
seems to be treading with gratification over prostrate serfs, and to
have the breath of the trumpet in his nostrils. So rides for ever, on
the front of the town-hall, the good king Louis XII., the father of his
people.

Over the king's head, in the tall centre turret, appears the dial of a
clock; and high above that, three little mechanical figures, each one
with a hammer in his hand, whose business it is to chime out the hours
and halves and quarters for the burgesses of Compiegne. The centre
figure has a gilt breast-plate; the two others wear gilt trunk-hose;
and they all three have elegant, flapping hats like cavaliers. As the
quarter approaches, they turn their heads and look knowingly one to the
other; and then, _kling_ go the three hammers on three little bells
below. The hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the interior of the
tower; and the gilded gentlemen rest from their labours with
contentment.

I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their manoeuvres, and took
good care to miss as few performances as possible; and I found that even
the _Cigarette_, while he pretended to despise my enthusiasm, was more
or less a devotee himself. There is something highly absurd in the
exposition of such toys to the outrages of winter on a housetop. They
would be more in keeping in a glass case before a Nuernberg clock. Above
all, at night, when the children are abed, and even grown people are
snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these
ginger-bread figures winking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling
moon? The gargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly
enough may the potentate b