Maso profited by his advantage,
and, by applying fresh goads to his vanity, soon succeeded in causing him
to forget the wine, and in drawing him, with all the others, to the
windows.
The processions, in making the circuit of the city, had now reached the
square of the town-house, where the acting and exhibition were repeated,
as has been already related in general terms to the reader. There were
the officers of the abbaye, the vine-dressers, the shepherds and the
shepherdesses, Flora, Ceres, Pales, and Bacchus, with all the others,
attended by their several trains and borne in state as became their high
attributes. Silenus rolled from his ass, to the great joy of a thousand
shouting blackguards, and to the infinite scandal of the prisoners at the
windows, the latter affirming to a man that there was no acting in the
case, but that the demigod was shamefully under the influence of too many
potations that had been swallowed in his own honor.
We shall not go over the details of these scenes, which all who have ever
witnessed a public celebration will readily imagine, nor is it necessary
to record the different sallies of wit that, under the inspiration of the
warm wines of Vevey and the excitement of the revels, issued from the
group that clustered around the windows of the prison.
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