conciled his people with Europe. This
imposing ceremony being ended, the princes were again escorted into the
Abbey to their apartments, by the Grand Master, the Master of
Ceremonies and his aides, preceded by the Master-at-Arms, and the
Heralds-at-Arms, who had resumed their caps, coats-of-arms, and rods.
Then the crowd slowly dispersed. We shall not try to express the
sentiments to which this imposing and mournful ceremony must give rise.
With the regrets and sorrow caused by the death of a prince so justly
wept, mingle the hopes inspired by a King already the master of all
hearts. This funeral ceremony when, immediately after the burial of a
monarch whom God had called to Himself, were heard cries of 'Long live
Charles X.,'--the new King greeted at the tomb of his august
predecessor,--this inauguration, amid the pomps of death, must have
left impressions not to be rendered, and beyond the power of
imagination to represent."

Reader, if this recital has interested you, go visit the Church of
Saint-Denis. There is not, perhaps, in all the world, a spectacle more
impressive than the sight of the ancient necropolis of kings. Enter the
basilica, admirably restored under the Second Empire. By the mystic
light of the windows, faithful reproductions of those of former
centuries,--the funerals of so many kings, the profanations of 1793,
the restoration of the tombs,--all this invades your thought and
inspires you with a dim religious impression of devotion. These stones
have their language. Lapides clamabunt. They speak amid the sepulchral
silence. Listen to the echo of a far-away voice. There, under these
arches, centuries old, the 21st of August, 1670, Bossuet pronounced the
funeral oration of Madame Henriette of England. He said:--

"With whatever haughty distinction men may flatter themselves, they all
have the same origin, and this origin insignificant. Their years follow
each other like waves; they flow unceasingly, and though the sound of
some is slightly greater and their course a trifle longer than those of
others, they are together confounded in an abyss where are known
neither princes nor kings nor the proud distinctions of men, as the
most boasted rivers mingle in the ocean, nameless and inglorious with
the least known streams."

Is not the Church of Saint-Denis itself a funeral discourse in stone
more grandiose and eloquent than that of the reverend orator? Regard on
either side of the nave these superb mausol