{"id":"01KG8AKCKPX26E1BW4GZCJQTP2","cid":"bafkreicx7mhudklwichbb37k5sft43giv5ehf54uzqqd2aiadlekkmhe6q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6135,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:56.336Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","start_line":6062,"text":"As he spoke, a basement door in the distance was thrown open, and the\r\nsqualid mass made a rush for the dark vault beyond.\r\n\r\nI nodded to my guide, and sideways we joined in with the rest. Ere long\r\nwe found our retreat cut off by the yelping crowd behind, and I could\r\nnot but congratulate myself on having a civic, as well as civil guide;\r\none, too, whose uniform made evident his authority.\r\n\r\nIt was just the same as if I were pressed by a mob of cannibals on some\r\npagan beach. The beings round me roared with famine. For in this mighty\r\nLondon misery but maddens. In the country it softens. As I gazed on the\r\nmeagre, murderous pack, I thought of the blue eye of the gentle wife of\r\npoor Coulter. Some sort of curved, glittering steel thing (not a sword;\r\nI know not what it was), before worn in his belt, was now flourished\r\noverhead by my guide, menacing the creatures to forbear offering the\r\nstranger violence.\r\n\r\nAs we drove, slow and wedge-like, into the gloomy vault, the howls of\r\nthe mass reverberated. I seemed seething in the Pit with the Lost. On\r\nand on, through the dark and damp, and then up a stone stairway to a\r\nwide portal; when, diffusing, the pestiferous mob poured in bright\r\nday between painted walls and beneath a painted dome. I thought of the\r\nanarchic sack of Versailles.\r\n\r\nA few moments more and I stood bewildered among the beggars in the\r\nfamous Guildhall.\r\n\r\nWhere I stood--where the thronged rabble stood, less than twelve\r\nhours before sat His Imperial Majesty, Alexander of Russia; His Royal\r\nMajesty, Frederick William, King of Prussia; His Royal Highness,\r\nGeorge, Prince Regent of England; His world-renowned Grace, the Duke\r\nof Wellington; with a mob of magnificoes, made up of conquering field\r\nmarshals, earls, counts, and innumerable other nobles of mark.\r\n\r\nThe walls swept to and fro, like the foliage of a forest with\r\nblazonings of conquerors' flags. Naught outside the hall was visible.\r\nNo windows were within four-and-twenty feet of the floor. Cut off from\r\nall other sights, I was hemmed in by one splendid spectacle--splendid,\r\nI mean, everywhere, but as the eye fell toward the floor. _That_ was\r\nfoul as a hovel's--as a kennel's; the naked boards being strewed with\r\nthe smaller and more wasteful fragments of the feast, while the two\r\nlong parallel lines, up and down the hall, of now unrobed, shabby,\r\ndirty pine-tables were piled with less trampled wrecks. The dyed\r\nbanners were in keeping with the last night's kings: the floor suited\r\nthe beggars of to-day. The banners looked upon the floor as from his\r\nbalcony Dives upon Lazarus. A line of liveried men kept back with\r\ntheir staves the impatient jam of the mob, who, otherwise, might have\r\ninstantaneously converted the Charity into a Pillage. Another body of\r\ngowned and gilded officials distributed the broken meats--the cold\r\nvictuals and crumbs of kings. One after another the beggars held up\r\ntheir dirty blue tickets, and were served with the plundered wreck of\r\na pheasant, or the rim of a pasty--like the detached crown of an old\r\nhat--the solids and meats stolen out.\r\n\r\n\"What a noble charity,\" whispered my guide. \"See that pasty now,\r\nsnatched by that pale girl; I dare say the Emperor of Russia ate of\r\nthat last night.\"\r\n\r\n\"Very probably,\" murmured I; \"it looks as though some omnivorous\r\nemperor or other had had a finger in that pie.\"\r\n\r\n\"And see yon pheasant too--there--that one--the boy in the torn shirt\r\nhas it now--look! The Prince Regent might have dined off that.\"\r\n\r\nThe two breasts were gouged ruthlessly out, exposing the bare bones,\r\nembellished with the untouched pinions and legs.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, who knows!\" said my guide, \"his Royal Highness the Prince Regent\r\nmight have eaten of that identical pheasant.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't doubt it,\" murmured I, \"he is said to be uncommonly fond of\r\nthe breast. But where is Napoleon's head in a charger? I should fancy\r\nthat ought to have been the principal dish.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJK5E4AYBB3EJ2HKZXQYW","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCKM4PBHDBRS0J5CMXKJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK6HW81P4AEKAA46V4QPX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:02.678Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:10.203Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}