CHAPTER XVII

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THE VAL DE GRÂCE--RELICS OF THE GREAT.

The Deaf and Dumb Institution--The Val de Grâce--Hearts as Relics--Royal Funerals--The Church of Saint-Denis.

Returning from the Museum of Artillery to the Museum of the Hôtel Cluny, we see, from the Cluny garden, the portico of the ancient church of Saint-Benoit, first transformed into the Théâtre du Panthéon, and then demolished. Enclosed by the church and cloister of Saint-Benoit was an open space, in which, on the 5th of June, the day of the Fête-Dieu, 1455, François Villon, the wild vagabond poet, assassinated the priest Philippe Chermoye, his rival in love. Closed at the time of the Revolution, and then sold as national property, it was afterwards, in 1813, converted into a flour depôt. In 1832, on the site of the ruined church, was built the Théâtre du Panthéon, where Alexandre Dumas brought out his drama of _Paul Jones_. The Théâtre du Panthéon, after remaining closed for some years, was pulled down in 1854. Near it, however, on the other side of the Hôtel Cluny, looking towards the Boulevard Saint-Germain, was built the Théâtre des Folies Saint-Germain, where were produced _Les Inutiles_ of Edouard Cadol, _Les Sceptiques_ of Felicien Mallefille, and a number of other amusing pieces.

[Illustration: THE DEAF AND DUMB INSTITUTION.]

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In the neighbourhood of the Hôtel Cluny and of the Théâtre Cluny is a very interesting establishment: the Deaf and Dumb Institution of the benevolent Abbé de l’Epée, to whom the deaf and dumb are indebted not only for the language of signs, which for them replaces speech, but also for the establishment in which the deaf and dumb children receive the education and instruction necessary for them to make their way in the world. But those inmates intended by their parents for a liberal profession are charged one thousand francs (£40) a year. The departments, communes, and charitable institutions of the country maintain purses of about 6,000 francs. The State has the disposal of 140 purses, from which it makes to the institution an annual allowance of 70,000 francs. There are higher classes for children who desire to follow them, with workshops for children who will have to subsist by manual labour. In 1785 the Deaf and Dumb School, carried on until that time in the Rue des Moulins at the Butte Saint-Roch, received an annual subvention of 34,000 francs. The Abbé de l’Epée died on the 23rd of December, 1789, at the age of seventy-seven. His funeral oration was pronounced on the 23rd of January, 1790, by the Abbé Fauchet, preacher-in-ordinary to the king. On the 21st of July in the following year the National Assembly voted an annual sum of 12,700 livres (_i.e._, francs) for the Deaf and Dumb School, which now, from the Convent of the Celestins, where Queen Marie Antoinette had established it, was transferred to the ancient seminary of Saint-Magloire, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques.

The Deaf and Dumb School was reconstructed in 1823 by the architect, M. Peyre, who left it as it now stands. It is looked upon as the perfect model of institutions of the kind. It contains, besides the class-rooms, refectories, dormitories, and workshops, not to mention the rooms in which the sittings of the “Central Society of Education and Assistance for the Deaf and Dumb” are held.

Almost opposite the entrance to the Deaf and Dumb Institute is the Rue des Ursulines, and just beyond, the Rue des Feuillantines, where Victor Hugo passed the happiest years of his childhood, to which reference is made in some of the finest verses of the _Orientales_. The Rue Saint-Jacques now joins the Rue d’Enfer, which separates it from the Boulevard Saint-Michel. The Rue d’Enfer owes its ominous name to a belief entertained in the eighteenth century that it was haunted by the fiend. Various plans for driving away the common enemy of man were suggested, until at last the bright idea occurred to someone of making over the entire street to an order of monks, who, it was thought, would be able, if anyone could, to deal with the invader from below. Either by some exorcising process, or by the natural dread which Satan or his emissary could not fail to experience at being brought beneath the observation of so many pious brethren, the Rue d’Enfer, from the time of its passing into the hands of the religious order, became one of the quietest thoroughfares in Paris. It still, however, in memory of the old legend, preserves its ancient name. No. 269 in the Rue d’Enfer, which runs out of Paris by the side of the Luxembourg Gardens, and takes us almost to suburban parts, is the house, formerly a Benedictine monastery, where, until the Revolution, was preserved the body of James II. of England, who had died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the 16th September, 1701, and of Louise Marie Stewart, his daughter, who died at the same place in 1727.

We now approach the Val de Grâce, that superb monument which Anne of Austria founded in 1641 as a thank-offering for the birth of the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIV., who came into the world when his mother had been twenty-two years without giving birth to a child. The young king, now in his eighth year, laid the first stone of the Val de Grâce on the 1st of April, 1645. Mansard, the royal architect, had drawn up the plan and begun the work, when serious difficulties presented themselves; for the site of the church was just above the catacombs. To reach a foundation, it was necessary to make a number of deep piercings, besides supporting the new edifice with blocks of solid masonry. One of Molière’s few serious poems is in honour of the Val de Grâce and of its architect, who was numbered amongst his most intimate and most cherished friends. After a very short time, however, the direction of the works was taken from Mansard, and given to Jacques le Mercier. Finally, Pierre de Muet was entrusted with the difficult but honourable task; nor did he finish the work without the assistance of two other architects, Gabriel le Duc and Duval.

The façade of the Val de Grâce, like that of the Sorbonne, is composed of two Corinthian orders, placed one above the other. Around the cupola Pierre Mignard has painted a large fresco representing the abode of the blest, divided into many mansions. This admirable work is certainly (as Molière pointed out in the poem previously referred to) Mignard’s masterpiece; and it may well be regarded as the most important wall-painting in Paris. The mosaic of the marble pavement, in spite of its dilapidated condition, is another attraction connected with this fine building. The principal altar, reproduced from that of St. Peter’s at Rome, had been destroyed in the revolutionary days of 1793. But the architect, Ruprich Robert, reconstructed it by order of the Emperor Napoleon III.; and it was consecrated after the fall of the Second Empire, on the 28th of July, 1870. The paintings which adorn the chapel are by Philippe of Champagne and his nephew, Jean Baptiste. The dome, which seemed to be in an insecure condition, was reconstructed and strengthened by means of iron supports in 1864 and 1865.

Closed in 1790, the Church of Val de Grâce was used as a magazine for stores during the Republic and the Empire; and it was not restored to public worship until 1826. The hearts of the princes and princesses of the royal family were successively deposited in the different chapels of the church, the first being that of Ann Elizabeth, daughter of Louis XIV., who died in tender years; the last that of Louis, Duke of Burgundy, who died March 27, 1761. These hearts were thrown to the winds in 1793, but not the reliquaries of gilded enamel in which they were enclosed. One alone was saved: the heart of the dauphin, son of Louis XVI. and of Marie Antoinette, which was restored to the royal family and afterwards deposited at Saint-Denis in 1817. Two hearts are still deposited in the ancient vaults: that of an English woman named Mary Danby, of whom no record has been preserved, and that of Larrey, the illustrious surgeon-in-chief to the Grand Army, whose statue in bronze, by David of Angers, adorns the courtyard of the Val de Grâce.

The last king of France and of Navarre died on the 6th of July, 1836, and it was not until nine days afterwards, on the 15th of July, that the fact was made known to the French public through the columns of the _Gazette de France_. The heart, too, of Charles X. was, according to royal custom, separated from the body; though instead of being preserved apart, as in the case of former French kings, it was, after being enclosed in a heart-shaped box of lead, again enclosed in a box of enamel fastened with screws to the top of the coffin. The Comte de Chambord, on the other hand, was buried in the ordinary manner, and not, like Charles X., with his heart on the coffin lid; nor like Louis XVIII., with his heart in one place and his body in another. The dead, according to the German ballad, “ride fast.” But the living move still faster; and in France, almost as much as in England, the separation of a heart from the body to be kept permanently as a relic is in the present day a process which seems to savour of ancient times; though, as a matter of fact, it was common enough, at least among the French, at the end of the last century. In our own country the discontinuance of what was at one time as much a custom in England as in France, or any other Continental land, is probably due to the influence of the Reformation, which, condemning absolutely the adoration of the relics of saints, did not favour the respectful preservation of relics of any kind. Great was the astonishment caused in England when, in the last generation, it was found that Daniel O’Connell had by will ordered his heart to be sent to Rome. The injunction was made at the time the subject of an epigram which was intended to be offensive, but which would probably have been regarded by O’Connell himself as the reverse, setting forth, as it did, that the heart which was to be forwarded to Rome had never, in fact, been anywhere else. The reasons for which, in the Middle Ages, hearts were enclosed in precious urns may have been very practical ones. Sometimes the owner of the heart had died far from home; and, in accordance with his last wishes, the organ associated with all his noblest emotions was sent across the seas to his living friends. Such may well have been the case when, after the death of St. Louis at Tunis, the heart of the pious king was transmitted to France, where it was preserved for centuries, perhaps even until our own time, in the Sainte-Chapelle. In the year 1798, while some masons were engaged in repairing the building, which had been converted into a _depôt_ for state archives, they came across a heart-shaped casket in lead, containing what was described as “the remains of a human heart.” The custodians of the archives drew up a formal report on the discovery, and, enclosing it in the casket with the remains, replaced the whole beneath the flagstones under which they had been found. In 1843, when the chapel was restored, the leaden heart-shaped casket was found anew, and a commission was appointed to decide as to the genuineness of the remains believed to be those of St. Louis. An adverse decision was pronounced, the reasons for discrediting the legend on the subject being fully set forth by M. Letrenne, the secretary of the commission.

More authentic are the remains cherished at Rouen as representing the heart of Richard the Lion-hearted; though in this case again all similitude to a heart, whether in shape or in substance, has entirely disappeared. The descendants of St. Louis have in most cases had their hearts preserved, though for different reasons from those which seemed to have actuated the pious Crusader in his distant exile. Louis XIV., whose body, like that of his predecessors and successors even to the eighteenth of the same name, was to be buried at Saint-Denis, gave his heart to the Jesuits: “that heart,” says the Duc de Saint-Simon, “which loved none and which few loved.” The heart of Louis XVIII. was in like manner entrusted to the keeping of a religious house; and the same custom would doubtless have been followed when Louis XV. died of small-pox, had the dangerous condition of the body allowed of its being done.

[Illustration: ELM TREE IN THE COURT OF HONOUR AT THE DEAF AND DUMB INSTITUTION.]

From Louis XV. to Louis XVIII. no king of France died on the throne. But when the postmortem examination was made of the child who perished in the Temple, Dr. Pelletan, one of the surgeons who took part in the operation, placed aside the heart of the so-called Louis XVII., and, some twenty years afterwards, offered it to Louis XVIII., who, however, declined the gift. Whether the king disbelieved Dr. Pelletan’s story, or whether, as a certain set of writers maintain, he regarded as two different beings the child who died in the Temple and Louis XVII. (believed by many to have been smuggled out of prison and replaced by a substitute) has never been made known. The reputed heart of Louis XVII. did not in any case possess for Louis XVII.’s successor the value that Dr. Pelletan had hoped. Such relics cannot indeed be prized if any uncertainty exists as to their identity. About the same time that Dr. Pelletan, by his own account, was appropriating to himself the heart of Louis XVII., the heart of the great Buffon somehow became lost. Buffon had bequeathed his heart to a friend for whom he entertained the deepest affection. But the son, who had a great affection for his father, refused to part with it, and offered in its place his father’s brain. The heart was somehow lost in the midst of the revolutionary troubles, but the brain has been preserved even until now. The illustrious Cuvier wished at one time to purchase it, in order to place it at the foot of Buffon’s statue. At another time the Russian Government wished to buy it; and a high bid was once made for it by the proprietor of a museum of curiosities; until at last it became the property of the State.

[Illustration: STATUE OF THE ABBÉ DE L’EPÉE AT THE DEAF AND DUMB INSTITUTION.]

The heart of Buffon may probably, like many others, have been stolen for the sake of its casket. Hearts intended to be preserved were usually enclosed in cases not of lead--as by exception the heart of St. Louis seems to have been--but of silver, and even gold. The precious metal was often, moreover, adorned with jewels of great value. Every precaution, in fact, was taken to render as difficult as possible the permanent preservation of the object which it was desired to keep for ever; and, as a natural result, the number of hearts which have come down to the present day is exceedingly small. Nearly all the hearts in cases now to be met with are those of modern celebrities. That of Voltaire--which after being reverently kept until his death by his friend and admirer, the Marquis de Villette, was at the Marquis’s death given by his heirs to the state--can be seen at the National Library of Paris. But the Hôtel des Invalides is, more than any other French establishment, rich in hearts of the great. There the hearts are religiously preserved of Turenne, of La Tour d’Auvergne, of Kléber, and of Napoleon. In England the encased heart best known to us is probably that “Heart of Bruce” celebrated in Aytoun’s “Lay” on the subject. Boece, in the story on which Aytoun’s poem is partly founded, relates that when Sir James Douglas was chosen as most worthy of all Scotland to pass with King Robert’s heart to the Holy Land, he put it in a case of gold, with aromatic and precious ointments, and took with him Sir William Sinclair and Sir Robert Logan, with many other noblemen, to the holy grave, “where he buried the said heart with the most reverence and solemnity that could be devised.” According to Froissart, however, and other authorities, Bruce’s heart was brought back to Scotland. Douglas, the keeper of the heart, encountering the infidels, endeavoured to cut his way through, and might have done so had he not turned to rescue a companion whom he saw in jeopardy. In attempting this he became inextricably mixed up with the enemy. Then taking from his neck the casket which contained the heart of Bruce, he cast it before him, and exclaimed with a loud voice, “Now pass onward as thou wert wont, and I will follow thee.” These were the last words and deeds of an heroic life. Douglas, quite overpowered, was slain; and it was not until the following day that the heart of Bruce and the body of Douglas were both recovered. Brought back to Scotland, the heart was deposited at Melrose, and the Douglas family have ever since carried on their armorial bearings a bloody heart. This is one of the few hearts which have been preserved to a good purpose, and its preservation in the present day is largely due to its having been embalmed in verse.

The obsequies of the French kings have from the earliest times been attended with as much pomp and show as their coronations. It was not enough to embalm the body, place it in several coffins and finally carry it to the tomb; it was necessary, before transporting it to the royal burial-place of Saint-Denis, to observe a ceremonial which the court functionaries and the officials of state made a point of following in the most literal manner. In the first place, the effigy of the dead king was exposed for forty days in the palace, stretched out on a state bed, clothed in royal garments--the crown on the head, the sceptre in the right hand, and the brand of Justice in the left, with a crucifix, a vessel of holy water, and two golden censers at the foot of the bed. The officers of the palace continued their duties as usual, and even went so far as to serve the king’s meals as though he were still living. The body was afterwards transported to the abbey of Saint-Denis, with the innumerable formalities laid down beforehand; while, at the moment of interment, so many honours were paid to it, that to enumerate them would be to fill a small volume. So precisely was the ceremony regulated that battles of etiquette constantly took place among the exalted persons figuring in the ceremony. At the burial of Philip Augustus the Papal Legate and the Archbishop of Rheims disputed for precedence, and, as neither would give way, they performed service at the same time, in the same church, but at different altars. A like scandal occurred at the funeral of St. Louis. When his successor, Philip III., wished to enter the abbey of Saint-Denis at the head of the procession, the doors were closed in his face. The abbot objected to the presence, not of the king, his master, but of the Bishop of Paris and the Archbishop of Sens, whom he had observed among the officiating clergy, and who, according to his view, had no right to perform service in the abbey of Saint-Denis, where he alone was chief. The difference was arranged by the archbishop and bishop taking off their pontifical garments and acknowledging the supremacy of the abbot in his own abbey.

At the death of Charles VI. it was found necessary to consult the Duke of Bedford as to the conduct of the funeral ceremony, and, under the direction of the foreigner, it was performed with great magnificence. The duke observed as nearly as possible the ancient ceremonial, the only important variation being that (possibly in his character of Englishman) he ordered the interment to be followed by a grand dinner. Several disputes on the favourite subject of etiquette had already taken place, when at the dinner-table the presence of the Registrars of the Parliament was objected to by the king’s sergeants-at-arms. The point, when referred to the Master of the House, was decided in favour of the registrars.

These royal funerals cost naturally enormous sums of money, which were charged partly to the crown, partly to the city of Paris. The obsequies of Francis I. cost his successor five hundred thousand livres, without counting the contribution--which was probably of equal amount--from the town. The effigies of his two sons who had died before him were carried with him to Saint-Denis. Thus there were three coffins in the procession. By the observance of a similar custom, there were in the funeral procession of St. Louis no fewer than five.

At the funerals of the old kings genuine grief was often exhibited by the people. Such, however, was not the case at the obsequies of Louis XIV. The Duc de Saint-Simon, in his “Memoirs,” speaks of this funeral as a very poor affair, remarkable only for the confused style in which it was conducted. The king had left no directions in regard to his burial; and, partly for the sake of economy, partly to save trouble, it was decided to regulate the ceremonies by those observed at the interment of Louis XIII., who, in his will, had ordered that they should be as simple as possible. “His modesty and humility, as well as other Christian and heroic qualities, had not,” says Saint-Simon, “descended to his son. But the funeral of Louis XIII. was accepted as a precedent, and no one saw any harm in that, or in any other way objected to it, attachment and gratitude being virtues no longer to be found.” This was again shown by the absence of the Duke of Orleans, just appointed regent, on the occasion of the heart being carried to the Grand Jesuits. When, a month later, the solemn obsequies of the king were celebrated at Saint-Denis, everything took place with such confusion, “and so differently from what was observed at the funerals of Henry IV. and Louis XIII.,” that Saint-Simon declines to narrate the scene. He cannot, however, help recording a quarrel on a point of etiquette, which took place between three dukes of the realm and Dreux, the Master of the Ceremonies. Possibly the question raised affected his own personal dignity as a duke. “The Dukes of Uzès, of Luynes, and of Brissac,” writes Saint-Simon, “were appointed to carry the crown, the sceptre, and the brand of Justice, being the seniors of those competent for the duties.... When the ceremony had just begun Dreux approached the stall occupied by the Duke of Orleans to receive some order. Then M. d’Uzès went forward before the other princes and chief mourners, and said to Dreux that he begged him to remember that the three dukes must be saluted before the Parliament. Dreux replied that he should do nothing of the kind. He was son of the Councillor of the Great Chamber, who had sent the king’s testamentary disposition as regards the regency to the assembled Parliament. His son, then, was careful not to take part against the Parliament when the office held by his father was, prior to his own, the first cleanser of his low origin. M. d’Uzès was content to ask him his reasons. ‘Because it would be against rule,’” said Dreux. “This liar replied insolently and falsely,” adds Saint-Simon, “for his own registers, which are in my possession, show that the dukes were without difficulty saluted before the Parliament at the obsequies of Louis XIII., Henry IV,, etc. Their dignity requires it; the symbols of royalty carried by them require it; their seats, raised higher than those of the Parliament, prove it in the most evident manner. M. d’Uzès insisted, but Dreux continued to be offensive, and insisted on his side, appealing to his registers. As they could not then be referred to he was believed, on his more than frivolous word, by the Duke of Orleans, who had intervened, but who took a very feeble part in the laconic conversation. He cared neither for riches nor dignities. He wished to humour the Parliament, above all, at the beginning, but he was not sorry to see a new quarrel arise.”

In addition to the usual distribution of alms, the Regent of Orleans associated the funeral of Louis XIV. with an exceptional act of mercy. A number of persons had been arbitrarily imprisoned on _lettres de cachet_ and otherwise, some for Jansenism and various religious and political offences; others for reasons known only to the king; others, again, for reasons known to former ministers of the king, but to no one else. The regent ordered all the captives to be set at liberty, with the exception of a few whom he knew to be guilty of serious political or criminal misdeeds. Among the prisoners liberated from the Bastille was an Italian, who had been confined for thirty-five years, and who had been arrested the day of his arrival at Paris, which he had come to see simply as a traveller. “No one ever knew why,” says Saint-Simon, “nor, like most of the others, had he ever been interrogated. It was thought to be a mistake. When his liberty was announced to him, he asked sadly of what use it was to him. He said that he had not a sou, that he knew no one at Paris, not even the name of a street nor a single person in any part of France, that his relations in Italy were probably dead, and that his property must have been divided among his heirs, considering how long he had been away from the country and that no one knew what had become of him. He asked to be allowed to remain at the Bastille for the rest of his life with board and lodging. This was granted to him, with liberty to go out when he pleased. As for the prisoners taken out of the dungeons, into which the hatred of the ministers and that of the Jesuits had thrown them, the horrible condition in which they appeared inspired dread, and rendered credible all the cruelties they related when they were in full liberty.” The story of the prisoner who declined to leave the Bastille is additionally interesting from its having been reported of another prisoner--possibly real, probably imaginary--on the occasion of the Bastille being taken by the Revolutionists in 1789.

The funeral of Louis XV. was a very hurried affair. The king died on the 10th of May at twenty minutes past three. The whole court instantly took flight, and there only remained with the body the persons necessary to take care of it. The utmost precipitation was used in removing it from Versailles. None of the usual formalities were observed. Everyone was afraid to go near the body. Undertakers, like the rest, feared the small-pox of which the king had died, and the corpse was carried to Saint-Denis in an ordinary travelling-carriage, under the care of forty members of the body-guard and a few pages. The escort hurried on the dead man in the most indecent manner; and all along the road the greatest levity was shown by the spectators. The taverns were filled with uproarious guests, and it is said that when the landlord of one of them tried to silence a troublesome customer by reminding him that the king was about to pass, the man replied, “The rogue starved us in his lifetime; does he want us to perish of thirst now that he is dead?” A jest different in style, but showing equally in what esteem Louis XV. was held by his subjects, is attributed to the Abbé of Saint-Geneviève. Being taunted with the powerlessness of his saint, and the little effect which the opening of his shrine, formerly so efficacious, had produced, he replied: “What, gentlemen, have you to complain of? Is he not dead?”

[Illustration: THE VAL DE GRÂCE FROM THE RUE DE LA SANTÉ.]

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE PONT DE LA CONCORDE.]

The last of the Bourbons buried at Saint-Denis was Louis XVIII., whose obsequies were conducted as nearly as possible on the ancient regal pattern. The exhibition of the king’s effigy in wax had in Louis XVIII.’s time been out of fashion for more than a century. But the customs observed in connection with the lying-in-state of Louis XIV. were for the most part revived. The king, who died on the 16th of September, 1824, was embalmed, and on the 18th was exposed on a state bed in the Hall of the Throne. His bowels and heart had been enclosed in caskets of enamel. The exhibition of the body lasted six days, during which it was constantly surrounded by the officers of the crown and the superior clergy. The translation of the remains to Saint-Denis took place on the 23rd, in the midst of an imposing civil and military procession. The princes of the blood and grand officers of state occupied fourteen mourning coaches, each with eight horses, and the tail of the procession was formed by four hundred poor men and women bearing torches. Received at the entrance to the church by the Dean of the Royal Chapter and the Grand Almoner of France, the body was placed on trestles in the chancel while prayers were recited by the clergy. It was afterwards removed to an illuminated chapel, where it remained exposed for a whole month, the chapter performing services night and day. The interment took place on the 25th of October. The Grand Almoner said a solemn mass; and after the Gospel a funeral oration was pronounced by the Bishop of Hermopolis. Then four bishops blessed the body, and absolution having been pronounced, twelve of the body-guard carried down the coffin to the royal vault, and the Grand Almoner cast a shovelful of earth on the coffin, blessing it, and saying, “_Requiescat in pace_.” The king-at-arms approached the open vault, and threw into it his wand, his helmet, and his coat of arms, ordered the other heralds to imitate him, and calling up the grand officers of the crown, told them to bring the insignia of authority held from the defunct king. Each came in succession with the object entrusted to his care--such as the banner of the royal guard, the flags of the companies of the body-guard, the spurs, the gauntlets, the shield, the coat of arms, the helm, the pennon, the brand of justice, the sceptre, and the crown. The royal sword and banner were only presented at the mouth of the vault. The Grand Master of France inclined at the same time towards the coffin the end of his staff, and cried in a loud voice: “The king is dead!” The king-at-arms, taking three steps backwards, repeated in the same tone “The king is dead! The king is dead! The king is dead!” Then turning towards the persons assembled, he added: “Let us all pray to God for the repose of his soul.” The clergy and all present fell on their knees, prayed, and then stood up. The Grand Master then drew back his staff from above the vault, raised it in the air, and cried: “Long live the king!” The king-at-arms repeated: “Long live the king! Long live the king! Long live King Charles, the tenth of the name, by the grace of God King of France and of Navarre; very Christian, very august, very powerful; our honoured lord and master, to whom may God give a very long and very happy life. Cry all: ‘Long live the king!’” Music then sounded, and all present responded with cries of “Long live the king! Long live Charles X.!” The tomb was closed, and the ceremony was at an end.

At the funeral of the Comte de Chambord the hearse was surmounted by a dome, on which rested four crowns. It was not explained what kingdoms these crowns were intended to represent. As the head of the house of France, the right of the Count--heraldically speaking--to wear the French crown would scarcely be disputed. The four symbolical crowns on the Comte de Chambord’s hearse were possibly, then, meant to be simple reminders that the Bourbons claimed sovereign rights over four different countries; and, in the days of Louis Philippe, they in fact reigned in France, Spain, Naples, and Parma. But the revolution of 1848 in France, and the war of 1859 in Italy, cleared three thrones of their Bourbon occupants, and the last of the reigning Bourbons disappeared when, in 1868, Isabella of Spain fled from Madrid. Thus in the course of twenty years the four Bourbon crowns lost all real significance, and the Bourbon sovereigns increased the number of those “kings in exile,” so much more plentiful during the period of M. Alphonse Daudet than in that of Voltaire, who first observed them (in “Candide”) as a separate species.

Now that the Comte de Chambord reposes by the side of his grandfather, Charles X., there are as many of the Bourbons buried at Göritz as at St. Denis, where, in the burial-place of the French kings, the only really authentic bodies are those of the Duc de Berry, the Comte de Chambord’s father, and of Louis XVIII., his great-uncle. In regard to the latter occupants of the French throne, one knows at least where they are interred--Napoleon I. at the Invalides, Louis Philippe at Claremont, Napoleon III. at Chiselhurst, and the last two representatives of the Bourbons at Göritz. The first of the Bourbons Henry IV., together with his successors, Louis XIII., Louis XIV., and Louis XV., were all buried at St. Denis, in the vault known as that of the Bourbons; and to the coffins still supposed to contain their remains were added after the Restoration two more, which are reputed, without adequate foundation for the belief, to hold the bodies of Louis XVI. and of the child who died in the Temple--the so-called Louis XVII. The body of the Duc de Berry was laid in the vault of the Bourbons a few days after his assassination in 1820; and that of Louis XVIII. was consigned to the same resting-place in 1824. But in 1793 the tombs of the French kings had been dismantled and their contents reinterred promiscuously in two large graves hastily dug for their reception; and the identity of the bones asserted to be those of Louis XVI. and Louis XVII., which were not placed in the Bourbon vault of the St. Denis church until 1815, could scarcely be demonstrated. “To celebrate the 10th of August, which marks the downfall of the French throne, we must on its anniversary,” said Barère in his report on the subject, addressed to the French Convention, “destroy the splendid mausoleums at St. Denis. Under the Monarchy the very tombs had learned to flatter the kings. Their haughtiness, their love of display, could not become softened even on the theatre of death; and the sceptre-bearers who have done so much harm to France and to humanity, seem even in the grave to be proud of their vanished greatness. The powerful hand of the Republic must efface without pity these arrogant epitaphs, and demolish these mausoleums which would bring back the frightful recollections of the kings.”

The proposition of Barère was adopted, and the National Assembly decreed “that the tombs and mausoleums of the former kings in the church of St. Denis should be destroyed.” The execution of the decree was undertaken on the 6th of August, and three days afterwards fifty-one tombs had been demolished. One of the most remarkable of these tombs was the earliest--the tomb erected by St. Louis in memory of “Le Roi Dagobert,” of facetious memory, famed in song for having put on his breeches “à l’envers.” It is one of the most curious monuments of the thirteenth century, and at least as interesting by its subject as by its architecture. In three zones superposed, the first above the second, the second above the third, is represented the legend of Dagobert’s death. In the lowest of the three zones we see St. Denis revealing to a sleeping anchorite named Jean that King Dagobert is suffering torments; and close by the soul of Dagobert, represented by a naked child bearing a crown, is being maltreated by demons frightfully ugly, who are holding their prey in a boat. In the middle zone the same demons are running precipitately from the boat in the most grotesque attitudes at the approach of the three saints--Denis, Martin, and Maurice--who have come to rescue the soul of King Dagobert. In the highest of the bas-reliefs the soul of King Dagobert is free. The naked child is now standing in a winding-sheet, of which the two ends are held by St. Denis and St. Martin, and angels are awaiting him in Heaven, whither he is about to ascend. The commission appointed by the Convention did not destroy this tomb. They had it transported, with many other objects of artistic or of intrinsic value, to Paris; and on presenting to the National Assembly what had been saved from the general wreck, the representative of the commission spoke as follows:--“Citoyens représentatives--” Les prêtres ne sont pas ce qu’un vain peuple pense; Notre crédulité fait toute leur science.[B] Such was the language formerly held by an author whose writings prepared our revolution; the inhabitants of Franciade (the new Republican name given to the religious and royal St. Denis) have just proved to you that it is not foreign either to their mind or their heart. It is said that a miracle caused the head of the saint which we now offer you to travel from Montmartre to St. Denis. Another miracle, greater and more authentic, the miracle of the regeneration of opinions, brings this head to Paris. The new translation is marked, however, by this difference. The saint, according to the legend, kissed his hand respectfully at each step; and we have not once been tempted to kiss the offensive relic. His journey will not this time be chronicled in the martyrologies, but in the annals of reason; and it will be doubly useful to the human species. This skull and the holy rags which accompany it will cease at last to be the ridiculous object of popular veneration and the aliment of superstition, fanaticism, and lies. The gold and silver which surround them will help to strengthen the empire of liberty and reason. The treasures amassed in the course of centuries by the pride of kings, the stupid credulity of the devout, and the charlatanism of deceitful priests, seem to have been reserved by Providence for this glorious epoch. It will soon be said of kings, of priests, and of saints, They have been. Reason is now the order of the day; or, to speak the language of mysticism, the last judgment has arrived with the separation of the bad from the good. You, formerly the instruments of despotism, saints of both sexes, blessed of all kinds, be at least patriots: rise in a body, march to the help of our native land, be off to the mint--and may be by your help obtain in this life the happiness you promised us in another. We bring to you, citizen legislators, all the rottenness that existed at Franciade. But as in the midst of it there are objects designated by the Commission of Monuments as precious for the arts, we have filled with them six chariots; you will say where they can provisionally be placed, that the Commission may make a selection.”

[B] The priests are not what a shallow people thinks them; our credulity is all their learning.

When Louis XVIII. returned to the throne of his ancestors, he made it almost his first care to re-establish their tombs, and he entrusted the work to the well-known architect, M. Viollet-Le-Duc. The task of disinterring and sorting the bones of the ancient kings would have been too difficult; but coffins presumed to be those of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were discovered in the cemetery of the Madeleine, and another coffin, which might have been that of Louis XVII., was also found. These three coffins were in 1815 placed with great solemnity in the vault of the Bourbons; to which, as before mentioned, were added in 1820 and 1824 the coffins (with bodies enclosed) of the Duc de Berry and of Louis XVIII. The one king whose remains can be said beyond doubt to be in the ancient burial-places of the French kings is Louis XVIII.

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