Lippincotts Magazine, October 1873 | Page 5

We respected them as heroes, while
here--' But I cannot repeat to you, sir, what your representative
proceeded to add. That revolting sight," continued my informant, "was
the last glimpse we had of France our protector. When we returned to
the city a Prussian band played German airs to us at the foot of Kleber's
statue. We are Teutonized now. At least," concluded the burgher,
taking me by the shoulders to hiss the words through my ears in a safe
corner, "we are Germans officially. But I, for my part, am Alsatian for
ever and for ever!"
[Illustration: STREET OF THE GREAT ARCADES.]
Greatly delighted to have encountered so near a witness and so minute
a chronicler of the disasters of the town, I invited the professor to
accompany me in exploring it, my interest having vastly increased
during his recital; but he pleaded business, and, shaking both my hands
and smiling upon me out of a sort of moulding formed around his face
by his shirt-collars, dismissed me. So, then, once more, with a hitch to
my tin box, I became a lonely lounger. I viewed the church of Saint
Thomas, the public place named after Kleber, who was born here, some
of the markets and a beer establishment. In the church of Saint Thomas
I examined the monument to Marshal Saxe, by Pigalle. I should have
expected to see a simple statue of the hero in the act of breaking a
horseshoe or rolling up a silver plate into a bouquet-holder, according
to the Guy-Livingstone habits in which he appears to have passed his
life, and was more surprised than edified at sight of the large allegorical
family with which the sculptor has endowed him. In the same church I
had the misfortune to see in the boxes a pair of horrible mummies,
decked off with robes and ornaments--a count of Nassau-Saarwerden
and his daughter, according to the custodian--an unhappy pair who,
having escaped our common doom of corruption by some physical
aridity or meagreness, have been compelled to leave their tombs and
attitudinize as works of art. In Kleber's square I saw the conqueror of
Heliopolis, excessively pigeon-breasted, dangling his sabre over a
cowering little figure of Egypt, and looking around in amazement at the
neighboring windows: in fact, Kleber began his career as an architect,

and there were solecisms in the surrounding structure to have turned a
better balanced head than his. In the markets I saw peasants with red
waistcoats and flat faces shaded with triangles of felt, and peasant-girls
bareheaded, with a gilded arrow apparently shot through their brains. I
traversed the Street of the Great Arcades, and saw the statue of
Gutenberg, of whom, as well as of Peter Schöffer, the natives seem to
be proud, though they were but type-setters. Finally, in the Beer-hall,
that of the dauphin, I tasted a thimble-ful of inimitable beer, the
veritable beer of Strasburg. Already, at half-past eight on that fine May
morning, I persuaded myself that I had seen everything, so painful had
my feet become by pounding over the pavements.
My friend the engineer had agreed to breakfast with me at the hotel.
When I entered the dining-room with the intention of waiting for him, I
found two individuals sitting at table. One was no other than the
red-nosed Scotchman, the Eleusinian victim whom I had watched
through the bottle-rack at Épernay. Of the second I recognized the
architectural back, the handsomely rolled and faced blue coat and the
marble volutes of his Ionic shirt-collar: it was my good friend of the
cathedral. Every trace of his civic grief had disappeared, and he wore a
beaming banquet-room air, though the tear of patriotism was hardly dry
upon his cheek.
As I paused to dispose of my accoutrements the red nose was saying,
"Yes, my dear sir, since yesterday I am a Mason. I have the honor," he
pursued, "to be First Attendant Past Grand. It will be a great thing for
me at Edinburgh. Burns, I believe, was only Third Assistant, Exterior
Lodge: the Rank, however, in his opinion, was but the guinea's stamp.
But the advantages of Masonry are met with everywhere. Already in
the train last night I struck the acquaintance of a fine fellow, a Mason
like myself."
"Allow me to ask," said the cheerful bluebottle, "how you knew him for
a Mason like yourself?"
"I'll tell you. I was unable to sleep, because, you see, I had to drink
Moët for my initiation: as I am unaccustomed to anything livelier than
whisky, it unnerved me. To pass the time I went softly over the
signals."
"What signals, if I may be so indiscreet?"
"Number one, you scratch the nose, as if to chase a fly; number two,

you put your thumb in