“To this outburst of the public hopes,” says the Moniteur, “succeeded the return of pious and mournful duties; the tomb is closed over the mortal remains of the monarch whose subjects, restored to happiness, greeted him on his return from the land of exile with the name of Louis le Desire, and who twice reconciled 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 mausoleums, these pompous tombs that are but an empty show, and since their dead dwell not in them, contemplate these columns that seem to wish to bear to heaven the splendid testimony of our nothingness!  There, at the right of the