And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of Louis XVIII.
produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was rapid but majestic.
This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop; as he was not able to walk, he wished to run:
that cripple would gladly have had himself drawn by the lightning.
He passed, pacific and severe, in the midst of naked swords.
His massive couch, all covered with gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered noisily along.
There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it.
In the rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered a l''oiseau royal, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated man, two great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion of Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide blue ribbon: it was the king.~本~作~品~由~思~兔~在~線~閱~讀~網~友~整~理~上~傳~
Outside of Paris, he held his hat decked with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high English gaiters; when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and saluted rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind. When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter, the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, "That big fellow yonder is the government."