"Oh! my God," cried Fletcher, "I think my lord has breathed his last!"
The doctors came near and felt his pulse.
"You are right," said they; "he is dead!...."
On 22 April, Byron's remains were taken to the church where Marco Bozariz and General Normann lie buried. The body was enclosed in a rough wooden coffin; it was covered by a black mantle, and on the mantle they placed a helmet, a sword and a wreath of laurels.
Byron had expressed a wish that his body should be buried in his native land; but the Greeks asked to be allowed to keep his heart, and those who had cruelly made that heart bleed when he was alive, gave it up when he was dead.
His daughter Ada, whom I have since seen in Florence, was declared the adopted daughter of Greece. I do not know whether King Otho I. remembered this fact when he came to the throne.
[CHAPTER IV]
Usurped celebrity—M. Lemercier and his works—Racan's white hare-Le Fiesque by M. Ancelot—The Romantic artists—Scheffer—Delacroix —Sigalon—Schnetz—Coigniet—Boulanger—Géricault—La Méduse in the artist's studio—Lord Byron's funeral obsequies in England—Sheridan's body claimed for debt