“But do you mean to say that people submit to all this?”

“Submit!  Why it’s perfectly obvious to every one that it’s simply human—­besides being very convenient practically.  Of course in Germany they still go in for what they call Liberty; and the result is simple chaos.”

“Do you mean to say there’s no envy or jealousy between the trades?”

“Not in the social sense, in the very least, though there’s tremendous competition.  Why, every one under Royalty has to be a member of some trade.  Of course only those who practise the trade wear the full costume; but even the dukes have to wear the badges.  It’s perfectly simple, you know.”

“Tell me an English duke who’s a butcher,”

“Butcher? . . .  I can’t think of one this minute.  Southminster’s a baker, though.”

Monsignor was silent.  But it certainly seemed simple.

They were passing up now between the sentry-guarded gates of the enormous and exquisite palace of Versailles; and, beyond the great expanse of gravel on which they had just set foot, rose up the myriad windows, pinnacles, and walls where the Kings of France lived again as they had lived two hundred years before.  Far up, against the tender summer sky, flapped the Royal Standard; and the lilies of France, once more on their blue ground, indicated that the King was in residence.  Even as they looked, however, the banner seemed to waver a little; and simultaneously a sudden ringing sound from a shadowed portico a couple of hundred yards away brought Father Jervis to a sudden stop.

“We’d better step aside,” he said.  “We’re right in the way.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Some one’s coming out. . . .  Look.”

From out of the shadow into the full sunlight with a flash of silver lightning whirled a body of cuirassiers, wheeled into line, and came on, reforming as they came, at a canter.

A couple of heralds rode in front; and a long trumpet-cry pealed out, was caught, echoed, and thrown back by the crowding walls of the palace.

Behind, as Father Jervis drew him to one side, Monsignor caught a glimpse of white horses and a gleam of gold.  He glanced hastily back at the gates through which they had just come, and, as if sprung out of the ground, there was the crowd standing respectfully on either side of the avenue to see its Sovereign. (It was up this avenue to Paris, Monsignor reflected, that the women had come on their appalling march to the Queen who ruled them then.)

As he glanced back again the heralds were upon them, and the thunder of hoofs followed close behind.  But beyond the line of galloping guards, in the midst, drawn by white horses, ran the great gilded coach with glass windows, and the crown of France atop.

Two men were seated in the coach, bowing mechanically as they came—­one a small, young, vivacious-looking man with a pointed dark beard; the other a heavy, fair-haired, sanguine-featured, clean-shaven man.  Both alike were in robes in which red and gold predominated; and both wore broad feathered hats, shaped like a priest’s.