Read "Gloria Victis!" by Ossip Schubin online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is really melancholy for people who have been accustomed in Paris to entertain crowned heads, to be obliged in Austria to put up with a few sickly sprigs of nobility.
The Menu was very elaborate; the clumsy table service came from _Froment-Munice_ and the china was Sevres of the latest pattern, white, with a coronet and cipher in gilt; the butler looked like a cabinet minister, and the silk stockings of the flunkies were faultless. Nevertheless the entire dinner produced a sham, masquerading effect, reminding one more or less of a stage banquet when all the viands are of papier-mache.