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Brandes, Georg Morris Cohen, 1842-1927

"Recollections of My Childhood and Youth"

" Even now, when people had grown accustomed to the situation,
this proclamation hung like a nightmare over them. I was all the more
astonished when an old copy of the _Daily Paper_ for the 30th of
July fell into my hands, and I read that their correspondent (Topsoee,
recently arrived in Paris) had seen a bloused workman tear off his hat,
after reading the proclamation, and heard him shout, "_Vive la
France_!" So thoughtlessly did people continue to feed the Danish
public with the food to which it was accustomed.
Towards the 8th or 9th of August I met repeatedly the author of the
article. He told me that the Duc de Cadore had appeared in Copenhagen on
a very indefinite errand, but without achieving the slightest result.
Topsoee, for that matter, was extraordinarily ignorant of French affairs,
had only been four weeks in France altogether, and openly admitted that
he had touched up his correspondence as well as he could. He had never
yet been admitted to the _Corps legislatif_, nevertheless he had
related how the tears had come into the eyes of the members and the
tribunes the day when the Duc de Grammont "again lifted the flag of
France on high." He said: "I have been as unsophisticated as a child
over this war," and added that Bille had been more so than himself.

XXIII.


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