The former entrance, on the steps of which stand the Heralds-at-
Arms at the obsequies of the kings, has been suppressed. The
coffin of Louis XVIII. was not placed on the iron trestles, where
it rests to-day, at the time of his funeral. It was put at the
threshold of the vault, where it was to have been replaced by that
of Charles X.; for by the ancient tradition, when a king of France
dies, as his successor takes his place on the throne, so he, in
death, displaces his predecessor. But Louis XVIII. waited in vain
for Charles X. in the royal vault of the Bourbons; the last
brother of Louis XVI. reposes in the chapel of the Franciscans at
Goritz.
Charles X. is not alone in being deprived of his rights in his
tomb; the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme and the Count of Chambord
were so, and also Napoleon III. The second Emperor and Prince
Imperial, his son, sleep their sleep in England; for the
Bonapartes, like the Bourbons, have been exiled from Saint-Denis.
By a decree of the 18th of November, 1858, the man who had re-
established the Empire decided that the imperial dynasty should
have its sepulture in the ancient necropolis of the kings.
Napoleon III. no more, realized his dream than Napoleon I. He had
completed under his reign the magnificent vault destined for
himself and his race. But once more was accomplished the Sic vos
non vobis, and no imperial corpse has ever taken its place in the
still empty Napoleonic vault.
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