Felicia, to avoid her thoughts, voluntarily fixed her eyes upon this monotonous defile, exasperating in its length; and little by little a torpor stole over her, as if on a rainy day she had been turning over the leaves of an album of engravings, a history of official costumes from the most remote times down to our own day.  All these people, seen in profile, still and upright, behind the large glass panes of the carriage windows, had indeed the appearance of personages in coloured plates, sitting well forward on the edge of the seats in order that the spectators should miss nothing of their golden embroideries, their palm-leaves, their galloons, their braids—­puppets given over to the curiosity of the crowd—­and exposing themselves to it with an air of indifference and detachment.

Indifference!  That was the most special characteristic of this funeral.  It was to be felt everywhere, on people’s faces and in their hearts, as well among these functionaries of whom the greater part had only known the duke by sight, as in the ranks on foot between his hearse and his brougham, his closest friends, or those who had been in daily attendance upon him.  The fat minister, Vice-President of the Council, seemed indifferent, and even glad, as he held in his powerful fist the strings of the pall and seemed to draw it forward, in more haste than the horses and the hearse to conduct to his six feet of earth the enemy of twenty years’ standing, the eternal rival, the obstacle to all his ambitions.  The other three dignitaries did not advance with the same vigour, and the long cords floated loosely in their weary or careless hands with significant slackness.  The priests were indifferent by profession.  Indifferent were the servants of his household, whom he never called anything but “chose,” and whom he treated really like “things.”  Indifferent was M. Louis, for whom it was the last day of servitude, a slave become emancipated, rich enough to enjoy his ransom.  Even among the intimate friends of the dead man this glacial cold had penetrated.  Yet some of them had been deeply attached to him.  But Cardailhac was too busy superintending the order and the progress of the procession to give way to the least emotion, which would, besides, have been foreign to his nature.  Old Monpavon, stricken to the heart, would have considered the least bending of his linen cuirass and of his tall figure a piece of deplorably bad taste, totally unworthy of his illustrious friend.  His eyes remained as dry and glittering as ever, since the undertakers provide the tears for great mournings, embroidered in silver on black cloth.  Some one was weeping, however, away yonder among the members of the committee; but he was expending his compassion very naively upon himself.  Poor Nabob! softened by that music and splendour, it seemed to him that he was burying all his ambitions of glory and dignity.  And his was but one more variety of indifference.