Cloud, is now the heritage and possession of
this fine Austrian. And do you know what she has done? Close by the
railing which separates the park from St. Cloud, and near the
entrance, she has had a tablet put up, on which are written the
conditions on which the public are allowed to enter the park."
"Well, that is nothing new," said the cobbler, impatiently." They
have such a board put up at all the royal gardens, and everywhere
the public is ordered, in the name of the king, not to do any
injury, and not to wander from the regular paths."
"Well, that is just; it is ordered in the name of the king; but in
St. Cloud, it runs in the name of the queen. Yes, yes, there you may
see in great letters upon the board; 'In the name of the queen.'
[Footnote: "De par la reine" was the expression which was then in
the mouth of all France and stirred everybody's rage.] It is not
enough for us that a king sits upon our neck, and imposes his
commands upon us and binds us. We have now another ruler in France,
prescribing laws and writing herself sovereign. We have a new police
regulation in the name of the queen, a state within the state. Oh,
the spider is making a jolly mesh of it! In the Trianon she made the
beginning. There the police regulations have always been in the name
of the queen; and because the policy was successful there, it
extends its long finger still further, issues a new proclamation
against the people, appropriates to itself new domain, and proposes
to gradually encompass all France with its cords.
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