Chapter 14

So once were ranged the sons of ancient Rome,
A noble show! While Roscius trod the stage.

Cowper.

The day was not yet far advanced, when all the component parts of the
grand procession had arrived in the square. Shortly after, a flourish of
clarions gave notice of the approach of the authorities. First came the
bailiff, filled with the dignity of station, and watching, with a vigilant
but covert eye, every indication of feeling that might prove of interest
to his employers, even while he most affected sympathy with the occasion
and self-abandonment to the follies of the hour; for Peter Hofmeister owed
his long-established favor with the bürgerschaft more to a
never-slumbering regard to its exclusive interests and its undivided
supremacy, than to any particular skill in the art of rendering men
comfortable and happy. Next to the worthy bailiff, for apart from an
indomitable resolution to maintain the authority of his masters, for good
or for evil, the Herr Hofmeister merited the appellation of a worthy man,
came Roger de Blonay and his guest the Baron de Willading, marching, _pari
passu_, at the side of the representative of Berne himself. There might
have been some question how far the bailiff was satisfied with this
arrangement of the difficult point of etiquette, for he issued from his
own gate with a sort of side-long movement that kept him nearly confronted
to the Signor Grimaldi, though it left him the means of choosing his path
and of observing the aspect of things in the crowd. At any rate, the
Genoese, though apparently occupying a secondary station, had no grounds
to complain of indifference to his presence. Most of the observances and
not a few of the sallies of honest Peter, who had some local reputation as
a joker and a _bel esprit_, as is apt to be the case with your municipal
magistrate, more especially when he holds his authority independently of
the community with whom he associates, and perhaps as little likely to be
the fact when he depends on popular favor for his rank, were addressed to
the Signor Grimaldi. Most of these good things were returned in kind, the
Genoese meeting the courtesies like a man accustomed to be the object of
peculiar attentions, and possibly like one who rather rioted in the
impunity from ceremonies and public observation, that he now happened to
enjoy. Adelheid, with a maiden of the house of Blonay, closed the little
train.

As all commendable diligence was used by the officers of the peace to make
way for the bailiff, Herr Hofmeister and his companions were soon in their
allotted stations, which, it is scarcely necessary to repeat, were the
upper places on the estrade. Peter had seated himself, after returning
numerous salutations, for none in a