I have never since set eyes on so large
a force of armed men. They were of all sorts. Some of the Mobiles, notably
the Breton ones, who afterwards gave a good account of themselves, looked
really soldierly; but the National Guards were a strangely mixed lot. They
all wore _kepis_, but quite half of them as yet had no uniforms, and were
attired in blouses and trousers of various hues. Only here and there could
one see a man of military bearing; most of them struck happy-go-lucky
attitudes, and were quite unable to keep step in marching. A particular
feature of the display was the number of flowers and sprigs of evergreen
with which the men had decorated the muzzles of the _fusils-a-tabatiere_
which they mostly carried. Here and there, moreover, one and another
fellow displayed on his bayonet-point some coloured caricature of the
ex-Emperor or the ex-Empress. What things they were, those innumerable
caricatures of the months which followed the Revolution! Now and again
there appeared one which was really clever, which embodied a smart,
a witty idea; but how many of them were simply the outcome of a depraved,
a lewd, a bestial imagination! The most offensive caricatures of
Marie-Antoinette were as nothing beside those levelled at that unfortunate
woman, the Empress Eugenie.
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