Page:Patriotismchrist00tols.djvu/14

8 our aim is only peace, the furtherance of peace, the security of peace, the tranquility and peace of Europe.

Long live the Russian Emperor and Empress! We love them, and we love peace. Long live the President of the Republic and his wife! We love them and we love peace. Long live France, Russia, their fleets and their armies! We love the army, and peace, and the commander of the Russian fleet.

The speeches concluded for the most part, like some popular ditty, with a refrain, "Toulon-Cronstadt," or "Cronstadt-Toulon." And the reiteration of the names of these places, where so many different dishes had been eaten and so many kinds of wine drunk, were pronounced as words which should stimulate the representatives of either nation to the noblest deeds—as words which require no commentary, being full of deep meaning in themselves. "We love each other; we love peace. Cronstadt-Toulon!" What more can be said, especially to the sound of glorious music, performing at one and the same time two national anthems—one glorifying the Tsar and praying for him all possible good fortune, the other cursing all Tsars and promising them destruction? Those who expressed their sentiments of love especially well on these occasions received orders and rewards. Others, either for the same reason or from the exuberance of the feelings of the givers, were presented with articles of the strangest and most unexpected kind. A French Province presented to the Tsar a book in which, it seems, nothing was written—or, at least, nothing of any concern—and the Russian admiral received an aluminium plough covered with flowers, and many other trifles equally astonishing.

Moreover, all these strange acts were accompanied by yet stranger religious ceremonies and society services to which one might suppose Frenchmen have long since become unaccustomed. Since the time of the Concordat scarcely so many prayers can have been pronounced as during this short period. All the French suddenly became very religious, and carefully deposited in the rooms of the Russian mariners the very images which a short time previously they had as carefully removed from their schools as harmful tools of superstition, and they said prayers incessantly. The Cardinals and Bishops everywhere enjoined devotions, and themselves pronounced some of the strangest. Thus a bishop at Toulon, at the launch of a certain ironclad, addressed the God of