ng
Shadow of Death, ceremoniously ushered along by another grinning Shadow,
of Etiquette: at intervals the growl of Chapel Organs, like prayer by
machinery; proclaiming, as in a kind of horrid diabolic horse-laughter,
Vanity of vanities, all is Vanity!

Chapter 1.1.IV.

Louis the Unforgotten.

Poor Louis! With these it is a hollow phantasmagory, where like mimes
they mope and mowl, and utter false sounds for hire; but with thee it is
frightful earnest.

Frightful to all men is Death; from of old named King of Terrors. Our
little compact home of an Existence, where we dwelt complaining, yet as
in a home, is passing, in dark agonies, into an Unknown of Separation,
Foreignness, unconditioned Possibility. The Heathen Emperor asks of his
soul: Into what places art thou now departing? The Catholic King
must answer: To the Judgment-bar of the Most High God! Yes, it is a
summing-up of Life; a final settling, and giving-in the 'account of the
deeds done in the body:' they are done now; and lie there unalterable,
and do bear their fruits, long as Eternity shall last.

Louis XV. had always the kingliest abhorrence of Death. Unlike that
praying Duke of Orleans, Egalite's grandfather,--for indeed several of
them had a touch of madness,--who honesty believed that there was no
Death! He, if the Court Newsmen can be believed, started up once on
a time, glowing with sulphurous contempt and indignation on his poor
Secretary, who had stumbled on the words, feu roi d'Espagne (the late
King of Spain): "Feu roi, Monsieur?"--"Monseigneur," hastily answered
the trembling but adroit man of business, "c'est une titre qu'ils
prennent ('tis a title they take)." (Besenval, i. 199.) Louis, we say,
was not so happy; but he did what he could. He would not suffer Death to
be spoken of; avoided the sight of churchyards, funereal monuments, and
whatsoever could bring it to mind. It is the resource of the Ostrich;
who, hard hunted, sticks his foolish head in the ground, and would fain
forget that his foolish unseeing body is not unseen too. Or sometimes,
with a spasmodic antagonism, significant of the same thing, and of
more, he would go; or stopping his court carriages, would send into
churchyards, and ask 'how many new graves there were today,' though it
gave his poor Pompadour the disagreeablest qualms. We can figure the
thought of Louis that day, when, all royally caparisoned for hunting, he
met, at some sudden turning in the Wood of Senart,