for retaliation for the reproach of vanity cast at them from over the Rhine. With their usual perfidy, they have not so much as once advertised this grant of an order in the French journals, and as the Germans, of course, felt themselves honoured in their fellow-countryman, and out of modesty forbore to mention it, it has happened that this event, which is of such great importance for both countries, has as yet been little known. Such neglect and silence was the more intolerable to the new-made knight since it was whispered rather loudly in his hearing that the new order, though he had received it at the hands of the Queen, was utterly valueless so long as its bestowal was not published in the Moniteur. The new knight wished to see this difficulty removed, but there came unfortunately in the way a worse impediment, namely, that the patent of an order granted by the King is utterly devoid of value if it is not countersigned by a Minister. Our knight had, by means of the doctrinaire relations of a certain famous lady, by whom he was once prime favourite,[1] got his order from the King, and it is said that the latter remarked in his whole personality a most striking resemblance to his deceased
- ↑ Kapaun im Korbe. A common German proverb calls any one who is specially petted a "Hahn im korb,"—"A cock in a basket." Heine here spitefully makes of the cock a capon.
