The soldier on guard
merely remarked politely: "_Ferme, monsieur, on va sortir._"
I little dreamed that only a few months later the Empress would steal
secretly out of the palace, having lost her crown, and still less that
only six months afterwards, during the civil war, the Tuileries would be
reduced to ashes, never to rise again.
XV.
At that time the eyes of the Danes were fixed upon France in hope and
expectation that their national resuscitation would come from that
quarter, and they made no distinction between France and the Empire.
Although the shortest visit to Paris was sufficient to convince a
foreigner not only that the personal popularity of the Emperor was long
since at an end, but that the whole government was despised, in Denmark
people did not, and would not, know it. In the Danish paper with the
widest circulation, the Daily Paper, foreign affairs were dealt with by
a man of the name of Prahl, a wildly enthusiastic admirer of the Empire,
a pleasant man and a brainy, but who, on this vital point, seemed to
have blinkers on. From all his numerous foreign papers, he deduced only
the opinions that he held before, and his opinions were solely
influenced by his wishes. He had never had any opportunity of procuring
information at first hand. He said to me one day:
"I am accused of allowing my views to be influenced by the foreign
diplomatists here, I, who have never spoken to one of them.
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