his account of the affair. After passing
through the entrance-hall, 'I slowly walked through two or three
handsome rooms _en suite_, full of interesting pictures, into a
drawing-room, in which I found assembled, in about equal proportions,
about fifty very well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, the latter being
principally officers, whose countenances, not less clearly than the
decorations on their breasts, announced them to be persons of
distinction. The long sofas and chairs, as if they had only just come
out--or rather, as if they had just come up from the country to come
out--had arranged themselves so very formally, and altogether behaved
so very awkwardly, that it was almost impossible for the company
assembled to appear as much at their ease as, from their position,
education, and manners, they really were; and accordingly, biassed by
the furniture, they kept moving, and bowing, and courtesying, and
_sotto-voce_ talking, until they got into a parallelogram, in the
centre of which stood, distinguished by a broad ribbon, and by a mild,
thoughtful, benevolent countenance, Prince Louis Napoleon, whose
gentle and gentleman-like bearing to every person who approached him
entitled him to that monarchical homage in which the majority
evidently delighted, but which it was alike his policy as well as his
inclination--at all events to appear--to suppress; and accordingly the
parallelogram, which, generally speaking, was at the point of
congelation, sometimes and of its own accord froze into the formality
of a court, and then all of a sudden appeared to recollect that the
Prince was the President, and that the whole party had assembled to
enjoy _liberte_, _fraternite_, and _egalite_. As I was observing the
various phases that one after another presented themselves to view,
the principal officer of the household came up to me, and in a quiet
and appropriate tone of voice, requested me to do two things; one of
which appeared to me to be rather easy, and the other--or rather to do
both--extreme

William Babington Maxwell (18661938) was a British novelist. He was a son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Though nearly 50 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, he was accepted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and served in France until 1917.

Cyrus Townsend Brady (December 20, 1861 January 24, 1920) was a journalist, historian and adventure writer. His most well-known work is Indian Fights and Fighters. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. He was also a deacon in the Episcopal church. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. His second wife was Mary Barrett.

Rebecca Sophia Clarke (1833-1906), also known as Sophie May, was an American author of childrens fiction. Using her nieces and nephews as inspiration, she wrote realistic stories about children. She wrote 45 books between 1860 and 1903. The most popular being the Little Prudy books. She lived most of her life in her native town of Norridgewock, Maine, where she lived out her life with her sister, who was also a successful author.