Page 202 - les-miserables

was at St. Helena; and since England refused him green
cloth, he was having his old coats turned. In 1817 Pelligrini
sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier reigned; Odry
did not yet exist. Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forio-
so. There were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a
personage. Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting
off the hand, then the head, of Pleignier, of Carbonneau,
and of Tolleron. The Prince de Talleyrand, grand chamber-
lain, and the Abbe Louis, appointed minister of finance,
laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the
two augurs; both of them had celebrated, on the 14th of
July, 1790, the mass of federation in the Champ de Mars;
Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis had served it in the
capacity of deacon. In 1817, in the side-alleys of this same
Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood might have
been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted
blue, with traces of eagles and bees, from which the gild-
ing was falling. These were the columns which two years
before had upheld the Emperor’s platform in the Champ de
Mai. They were blackened here and there with the scorches
of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near Gros-Caillou.
Two or three of these columns had disappeared in these
bivouac fires, and had warmed the large hands of the Im-
perial troops. The Field of May had this remarkable point:
that it had been held in the month of June and in the Field
of March (Mars). In this year, 1817, two things were popu-
lar: the Voltaire-Touquet and the snuff-box a la Charter. The
most recent Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun,
who had thrown his brother’s head into the fountain of the

202 Les Miserables