"I am going to slip a new sentence in there," said Villiers. "'Let us now leave the exposition, with its already old news, and take a promenade through the city.'"
"We love Munich, but not everyone is of our opinion. It is true that Munich is rather lacking in police officers, that _Les Pompiers de Nanterre_ is not sung here, that we notice an absence of assaults, swindlings and murders that is truly desolating for the future of this capital. On the other hand, we have seen magnificent theatres where Goethe is played, we have visited museums which contain treasures of art and of genius, we have seen monuments in the purest Greek style, great gardens like the Bois de Boulogne, immense cafés where one is served by pretty girls whom no one dreams of chaffing beyond reason, except, perhaps, some passing wags who have only their trouble for their pains.
"We have climbed up inside 'The Bavaria,' the enormous bronze statue which towers above the city, and through the eyes of which six people are able to see before them the sweep of land extending to the mountains of the Tyrol. We have visited the hall of the portraits of beautiful women of the country, where one imagines oneself in a sort of Montyon Gallery of love, and where, if her nose be of an heroic cast, the daughter of a shoemaker may find herself side by side with the daughter of a princess. The king, Ludwig I., who lodged in his palace this ingenuous display of Germanic beauty, loved all pretty women; and the good Bavarians recount that at his death the following scene must have taken place at the gate of Heaven:
"'One moment,' replies the blessed Apostle. Then he shouts in a voice of thunder: 'Get the eleven thousand virgins out of the way quick! Here is Ludwig of Bavaria just arriving!"
"But we must not laugh too much about that king who, in the place of military glory, has bequeathed to his people schools where the children are taught to develop a lofty and noble character."
"That is very good, Villiers, but you must not read any more," cried I, interrupting him. "Let us hurry to the post, there is still time before the evening collection. Let us send the article at once, the more you allow the time to pass, the less chance there is of its being published, for, in spite of your conciliatory sentence, present time does not wait."