The helmets and weapons of the soldiers were garlanded with flowers and foliage, the horses' legs were twined with wreaths, and their feet trod on a mass of trampled flowers and leaves.

The strength of the German army seemed to be decked and curled out of it; the lines of marching soldiers had women's faces: here and there a man had a patriotic admirer on his arm, who let it be seen that she had taken possession of his weapon and carried it for him.

The officers, as much bedecked as their men, managed nevertheless to preserve their dignity.
The crowd was gradually becoming stupefied by the spectacle, throats were sore with shouting and cheering, and the oppressive heat took the freshness out of the people's enthusiasm.

Once more, however, they broke out again, just as when the emperor and his paladins appeared, and this was when the French field-trophies were carried past.
Eighty-one standards and flags were there, from the battlefields of Russia, Italy, and Mexico, soaked through with men's blood, gloriously decomposed, torn, blackened with powder, and riddled with bullets.

Now the strong arms of German non-commissioned officers carried them in the sultry heat of the midsummer afternoon, these miserable remnants hanging heavy and limp without a flutter, without a spark of trembling life in the silken folds; they looked like imprisoned kings, who with heads bowed down, and despair in their eyes, walked in chains behind the triumphant Roman chariots.
"Look," sad Dr.Schrotter to Wilhelm, when a short pause came in the shouting, and in the rain of wreaths and flowers--"Look what makes the deepest impression on the people, next to the great representative figures.