At length, however, after much debating, it was determined that
arms should yield to the gown, or rather, the horse to the orator--with
this precaution, that the monture should be properly secured, by an
attendant to hold the bridle. Under this safeguard, the rhetorician
issued forth, and the first part of the speech was performed without
accident; but when, by way of relieving the declaimer, the whole military
band began to flourish ca ira, the horse, even more patriotic than his
rider, curvetted and twisted with so much animation, that however the
spectators might be delighted, the orator was far from participating in
their satisfaction. After all this, the speech was to be finished, and
the silence of the music did not immediately tranquillize the animal.
The orator's eye wandered from the paper that contained his speech, with
wistful glances toward the mane; the fervor of his indignation against
the Austrians was frequently calmed by the involuntary strikings he was
obliged to submit to; and at the very crisis of the emphatic declaration,
he seemed much less occupied by his country's danger than his own. The
people, who were highly amused, I dare say, conceived the whole ceremony
to be a rejoicing, and at every repetition that the country was in
danger, joined with great glee in the chorus of _ca ira_.*
*The oration consisted of several parts, each ending with a kind of
burden of _"Citoyens, la patri est en danger;"_ and the arrangers of
the ceremony had not selected appropriate music: so that the band,
who had been accustomed to play nothing else on public occasions,
struck up _ca ira_ at every declaration that the country was in
danger!
Many of the spectators, I believe, had for some time been convinced of
the danger that threatened the country, and did not suppose it much
increased by the events of the war; others were pleased with a show,
without troubling themselves about the occasion of it; and the mass,
except when rouzed to attention by their favourite air, or the
exhibitions of the equestrian orator, looked on with vacant stupidity.
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