Vanity Fair - Page 536/573

He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a very

gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness and

Countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her

fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's sister was

the greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and Jos might

have put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms on

his carriage and forks; when--when events occurred, and those grand

fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary Prince of Pumpernickel

with the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took

place.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not been

known in the little German place since the days of the prodigal Victor

XIV. All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, and Grandees were

invited to the feast. Beds rose to half a crown per night in

Pumpernickel, and the Army was exhausted in providing guards of honour

for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies who arrived from all

quarters. The Princess was married by proxy, at her father's

residence, by the Count de Schlusselback. Snuff-boxes were given away

in profusion (as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold and

afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the Order of Saint

Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court, while

hampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine of

Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours. The French envoy got both.

"He is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-horse," Tapeworm said,

who was not allowed by the rules of his service to take any

decorations: "Let him have the cordons; but with whom is the victory?"

The fact is, it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French party

having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a marriage with a

Princess of the House of Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter

of course, we opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. Garlands and

triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young bride.

The great Saint Michael's Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while

that in the Artillery Place frothed with beer. The great waters

played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens for the happy

peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure, carrying off

watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at

the top. Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole

to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity of

a fall of water. But it was for the glory's sake merely. The boy gave

the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized it, and stood at

the foot of the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in their

illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented the

young Couple advancing and Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous

likeness to the French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and

I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the Cross of the Bath

which he subsequently attained.