Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/70

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54
FLORENTINE NIGHTS.

wooden letters laid before him, the name of Lord Wellington, and added to it the very flattering word Hero. And as the dog, as one could easily see by his intelligent appearance, was no English brute, but had come with the other three performers from France, the sons of Albion rejoiced that their great general had, at least from the dogs of France, that recognition of his greatness which was so meanly denied to him by the other creatures of that country.

"This company was in fact French, and the dwarf, who announced himself as Monsieur Turlutu, began to bluster and boast in French with such passionate gestures that the poor English gaped with their mouths, and lifted their noses higher than ever. He often, after a long sentence, crowed like a cock, and these cock-a-doodle-doos, and the names of many emperors, kings, and princes which he scattered here and there, were all that the poor spectators understood. He boasted that these emperors, kings, and princes had been his patrons and friends. Even when only eight years of age he had, as he declared, held a long conversation with his late majesty Louis XVI., who subsequently frequently consulted him in most important affairs. He had, like many others, escaped the storms of the Revolution, nor was it till the Empire that he returned to his dear native land to take part in the glory