There was a large and raucous crowd of demonstrators on the Avenue Churchill sidewalk across from the Grand Palais, held back by Force Flic horsemen, and waving placards bearing such slogans as COOL THE EARTH NOW!, STOP CONDITION VENUS!, and A BLUE WORLD OR NONE! though mercifully neither REPENT NOW! nor THE END IS NIGH!” What Monique had not quite been prepared for was such well-organized pandemonium. Not only were the placards slickly printed, they seemed limited to about half a dozen slogans, and although the color of the type varied, the print font did not. There were even computer-enhanced stills from the only extant TV footage of a white tornado. The same still cloned dozens of times. The entrance to the Grand Palais itself was being kept clear by a functional semicircle of flics on foot armed with electric wands, but the horsemen holding back the crowd across the street were Garde Républicain in full fancy kit—plumed steel helmets, cloaks, costume swords—available for ceremonial occasions only at a hefty premium.
