Laval in pontificals,
surrounded by priests and Jesuits, stood waiting to receive the Deputy of
the King, and as he greeted Tracy and offered him the holy water, he
looked with anxious curiosity to see what manner of man he was.
The signs
were auspicious. The deportment of the Lieutenant-General left nothing to
desire. A prie-dieu had been placed for him. He declined it. They
offered him a cushion, but he would not have it, and fevered as he was, he
knelt on the bare pavement with a devotion that edified every beholder.
Te Deum was sung and a day of rejoicing followed. [83]
In our day, we can recall but one pageant at all equal: the roar of
cannon, &c., attending the advent of the great Earl of Durham, [84] but
there were noticeable fewer "priests," fewer "Jesuits," and less
"kneeling" in the procession. There was something oriental in the vice-
regal pageantry. Line-of-battle ships - stately frigates, twelve in number
- the Malabar, Hastings, Cornwallis, Inconstant, Hercules,
Pique, Charybdis, Pearl, Vestal, Medea, Dee and Andromache
visited that summer our shores, a suitable escort to the able, proud,
humane, [85] but unlucky Viceroy and High Commissioner, with his clever
advisers - the Turtons, Bullers, Wakefields, Hansomes, Derbyshires,
Dunkins, cum multis aliis. The Dictator was determined to "make a
country or mar a career." He has left us a country.
That warlike, though festive summer of 1838, with our port studded with
three-deckers and spanking frigates, was long remembered in the annals of
the bon ton.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 245 of 864
Words from 66716 to 66982
of 236821
