Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/248

 rather foolish proceeding, considering that the bee-spangled Imperial curtains still hang over the doors, and festoons of the same drapery decorate the gallery above. The brocaded panels of the Salle du Trône were objects of much remark among the ladies, as were the tapestries of the Salle des Gobelins; but the bareness and total absence of furniture were commented on freely on all sides. Not a chair or a window-blind, or even a door-plate or handle, is to be seen in any of the rooms, except in those used for the concerts, and the question arose, naturally enough, 'Where is it all gone to?' The same demand was made so often of an elderly bourgeois on duty at the end of the Salle de Diane that he was fairly bewildered, and looked round for help, and, hailing the gold stripes on my cap as a haven of relief, he forthwith seized upon me as a superior officer, and insisted on an explanation. 'You know there were quantities of cases carried off during the time before Sedan,' he said; 'but, with all their cunning, they can't have dismantled a whole palace of this size, can they?' And the crowd stood round endeavoring to account for the nakedness of the land, until a remark that the Commune had been feathering their nests with the chairs and tables dispersed them laughing.

"The Empress's bedroom was a great attraction, Chaplin's charming decorations being subjects of sufficient interest, independent of the absent furniture. The looking-glasses which spring from the walls called down ejaculations of delight from a party of dressmakers, who carefully took notes of the mechanism, 'in order to imitate it, my dear, when Paris becomes itself again.' There was a large placard upon the wall of a kind of library, inviting the attention of the public to the secret arrangements in a recess whereby the Empress obtained her dresses and linen from some manufactory of garments above, and an old