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 gilding 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 Imperial 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 popular:
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 Flower-Market.
They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of the lack of news from that fatal frigate, The Medusa, which was destined to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Gericault with glory.Colonel Selves was going to Egypt to become Soliman-Pasha. The palace of Thermes, in the Rue de La Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper.On the platform of the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little shed of boards, which had served as an observatory to Messier, the naval astronomer under Louis XVI., was still to be seen.The Duchesse de Duras read to three or four friends her unpublished Ourika, in her boudoir furnished by X. in sky-blue satin.．思．兔．在．線．閱．讀．