Look at me, my son.
I do not love pomp.
I am never seen in clothes decked with gold lace and stones; I leave that false splendor to badly organized souls.”
Here the deep shouts which proceeded from the direction of the Halles burst out with fresh force of bell and uproar.
“What is that?” inquired the child.
The father replied: “It is the Saturnalia.”
All at once, he caught sight of the two little ragged boys behind the green swan-hutch.
“There is the beginning,” said he. And, after a pause, he added: “Anarchy is entering this garden.”
In the meanwhile, his son took a bite of his brioche, spit it out, and, suddenly burst out crying.
“What are you crying about?” demanded his father.
“I am not hungry any more,” said the child.
The father’s smile became more accentuated.
“One does not need to be hungry in order to eat a cake.”
“My cake tires me.
It is stale.”
“Don’t you want any more of it?”
“No.”
The father pointed to the swans.
“Throw it to those palmipeds.”
The child hesitated.
A person may not want any more of his cake; but that is no reason for giving it away.
The father went on: “Be humane.
You must have compassion on animals.”
And, taking the cake from his son, he flung it into the basin.
The cake fell very near the edge.
The swans were far away, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some prey.
They had seen neither the bourgeois nor the brioche.
The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being wasted, and moved by this useless shipwreck, entered upon a telegraphic agitation, which finally attracted the attention of the swans.
They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as they are, and slowly directed their course toward the brioche, with the stupid majesty which befits white creatures.
“The swans [cygnes] understand signs [signes],” said the bourgeois, delighted to make a jest.
At that moment, the distant tumult of the city underwent another sudden increase.
This time it was sinister.
There are some gusts of wind which speak more distinctly than others.
The one which was blowing at that moment brought clearly defined drum-beats, clamors, platoon firing, and the dismal replies of the tocsin and the cannon.
This coincided with a black cloud which suddenly veiled the sun.
The swans had not yet reached the brioche.
“Let us return home,” said the father, “they are attacking the Tuileries.”
He grasped his son’s hand again.
Then he continued: “From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is but the distance which separates Royalty from the peerage; that is not far.
Shots will soon rain down.”
He glanced at the cloud.
“Perhaps it is rain itself that is about to shower down; the sky is joining in; the younger branch is condemned.
Let us return home quickly.”
“I should like to see the swans eat the brioche,” said the child.
The father replied: “That would be imprudent.”
And he led his little bourgeois away.
The son, regretting the swans, turned his head back toward the basin until a corner of the quincunxes concealed it from him.
In the meanwhile, the two little waifs had approached the brioche at the same time as the swans. It was floating on the water.
The smaller of them stared at the cake, the elder gazed after the retreating bourgeois.
Father and son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand flight of steps near the clump of trees on the side of the Rue Madame.