III
THE TOMBS OF SAINT-DENIS
The funeral solemnities of Louis XVIII. seemed to the people a
mortuary triumph of Royalty over the Revolution and the Empire.
The profanations of 1793 were expiated. Napoleon was left with the
willow of Saint Helena; the descendant of Saint Louis and of Louis
XIV. had the basilica of his ancestors as a place of sepulture,
and the links of time's chain were again joined. The obsequies of
Louis XVIII. suggested a multitude of reflections. It was the
first time since the death of Louis XV. in 1774, that such a
ceremony had taken place. As was said by the Moniteur:--
"This solemnity, absolutely novel for the greater number of the
present generation, offered an aspect at once mournful and
imposing. A monarch so justly regretted, a king so truly
Christian, coming to take his place among the glorious remains of
the martyrs of his race and the bones of his ancestors,--profaned,
scattered by the revolutionary tempest, but which he had been able
again to gather,--was a grave subject of reflection, a spectacle
touching in its purpose and majestic in the pomp with which it was
surrounded."
Through what vicissitudes had passed these royal tombs, to which
the coffin of Louis XVIII. was borne! Read in the work of M.
Georges d'Heylli, Les Tombes royales de Saint-Denis, the story of
these profanations and restorations.
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