THE CAPITOL AND THINGS AROUND IT.

CHAPTER I.

ANALYSIS OF MAJESTIC MATTERS.

Irresistible Fate ever carrying him forward, which had now for so many hours showered its surprises on Gwynplaine, and which had transported him to Windsor, transferred him again to London.  Visionary realities succeeded each other without a moment’s intermission.  He could not escape from their influence.  Freed from one he met another.  He had scarcely time to breathe.  Any one who has seen a juggler throwing and catching balls can judge the nature of fate.  Those rising and falling projectiles are like men tossed in the hands of Destiny—­projectiles and playthings.

On the evening of the same day, Gwynplaine was an actor in an extraordinary scene.  He was seated on a bench covered with fleurs-de-lis; over his silken clothes he wore a robe of scarlet velvet, lined with white silk, with a cape of ermine, and on his shoulders two bands of ermine embroidered with gold.  Around him were men of all ages, young and old, seated like him on benches covered with fleurs-de-lis, and dressed like him in ermine and purple.  In front of him other men were kneeling, clothed in black silk gowns.  Some of them were writing; opposite, and a short distance from him, he observed steps, a raised platform, a dais, a large escutcheon glittering between a lion and a unicorn, and at the top of the steps, on the platform under the dais, resting against the escutcheon, was a gilded chair with a crown over it.  This was a throne—­the throne of Great Britain.

Gwynplaine, himself a peer of England, was in the House of Lords.  How Gwynplaine’s introduction to the House of Lords came about, we will now explain.  Throughout the day, from morning to night, from Windsor to London, from Corleone Lodge to Westminster Hall, he had step by step mounted higher in the social grade.  At each step he grew giddier.  He had been conveyed from Windsor in a royal carriage with a peer’s escort.  There is not much difference between a guard of honour and a prisoner’s.  On that day, travellers on the London and Windsor road saw a galloping cavalcade of gentlemen pensioners of her Majesty’s household escorting two carriages drawn at a rapid pace.  In the first carriage sat the Usher of the Black Rod, his wand in his hand.  In the second was to be seen a large hat with white plumes, throwing into shadow and hiding the face underneath it.  Who was it who was thus being hurried on—­a prince, a prisoner?  It was Gwynplaine.

It looked as if they were conducting some one to the Tower, unless, indeed, they were escorting him to the House of Lords.  The queen had done things well.  As it was for her future brother-in-law, she had provided an escort from her own household.  The officer of the Usher of the Black Rod rode on horseback at the head of the cavalcade.  The Usher of the Black Rod carried, on a cushion placed on a