Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/223

Rh of feathers, after the imperial court fashion. Now the crowd became so dense that it was impossible to distinguish much more. The Swiss guard on both sides of the carriage; the hereditary marshal holding the Saxon sword upwards in his right hand; the field-marshals, as leaders of the imperial guard, riding behind the carriage; the imperial pages in a body; and, finally, the imperial horse-guard (Hatschiergarde) itself, in black velvet frocks (Flügelröcke), with all the seams edged with gold, under which were red coats and leather-coloured camisoles, likewise richly decked with gold. One scarcely recovered one's self from sheer seeing, pointing, and showing, so that the scarcely less splendidly clad body-guards of the electors were barely looked at; and we should, perhaps, have withdrawn from the windows, if we had not wished to take a view of our own magistracy, who closed the procession in their fifteen two-horse coaches; and particularly the clerk of the council, with the city keys on red velvet cushions. That our company of city grenadiers should cover the rear seemed to us honourable enough, and we felt doubly and highly edified as Germans and as Frankforters by this great day.

We had taken our place in a house which the procession had to pass again when it returned from the cathedral. Of religious services, of music, of rites and solemnities, of addresses and answers, of propositions and readings aloud, there was so much in church, choir, and conclave, before it came to the swearing of the electoral capitulation, that we had time enough to partake of an excellent collation, and to empty many bottles to the health of our old and young ruler. The conversation, meanwhile, as is usual on such occasions, reverted to the time past; and there were not wanting aged persons who preferred that to the present,—at least, with respect to a certain human interest and impassioned sympathy which then prevailed. At the