"Keep back!" cried he. "I have my orders. You will have to
settle me before you take my prisoners!"
Just then I caught the eye of one of the National Guards, who was shaking
his fist at us, and I said to him, "You are quite mistaken. We are not
Germans, but English!"
"Yes, yes, _Anglais, Anglais_!" my father exclaimed.
While some of the men in the crowd were more or less incredulously
repeating that statement, a black-bearded individual--whom I can, at this
very moment, still picture with my mind's eye, so vividly did the affair
impress me--climbed on to the parapet near us, and called out, "You say
you are English? Do you know London? Do you know Regent Street? Do you
know the Soho?"
"Yes, yes!" we answered quickly.
"You know the Lei-ces-terre Square? What name is the music-hall there?"
"Why, the Alhambra!" The "Empire," let me add, did not exist in those
days.
The man seemed satisfied. "I think they are English," he said to his
friends. But somebody else exclaimed, "I don't believe it. One of them is
wearing a German hat."
Now, it happened that my father had returned from London wearing a felt
hat of a shape which was then somewhat fashionable there, and which,
curiously enough, was called the "Crown Prince," after the heir to the
Prussian throne--that is, our Princess Royal's husband, subsequently the
Emperor Frederick.
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