We wished to enter the vault where the Bourbons are interred, but this the Suisse said was impossible, as he had not the keys, and even Mons. Thiers had been denied admittance some days before. The last buried was Louis the Eighteenth, whose chapelle ardente I saw here when I was a child, and with its splendid sarcophagus, purple velvet hangings, and thousand lights, and the silent crowd pressing to see, was a scene of melancholy brilliancy. The “chapelle ardente” occupied the whole of the nave, inclosed by the hangings, and terminated by a burning cross.
The “caveau,” which holds the last Condé, is totally dark, excepting where the lamp, which burns so feebly in its bad air, just shows the damp-decaying pall hanging in ribands. The lapse of centuries robs in some measure of its sadness the long range of monuments we passed before; but it is not so as we look through the iron gate at these dimly-seen coffins.
We think of the ditch of Vincennes and the bed-room of St. Leu!
It was in the now-closed vault of the Bourbons that Henry the Fourth lay. One anecdote more I must tell you, as it proves the respect entertained for his memory. It is told by Le Noir, the antiquarian:—
“The day following that of the allied armies’ entrance into Paris, a Russian general, accompanied by a detachment of cavalry, presented himself at eight in the morning at the museum of the Petits Augustins. He said he had heard in Russia of the collection I had formed, and as a lover of the arts it was the first place he desired to visit in Paris. I opened the gates to him, and he and his soldiers dismounted. Arrived in the hall of the sixteenth century, a statue in white marble absorbed his attention. I said to him, ‘It is the statue of Henry the Fourth.’ He repeated my words in Russian to his companions, and all, uncovering their heads, kneeled on one knee to do homage to the dead king of France.”
In January, 1815, the remains of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette were transferred to the vault of the Bourbons. In 1817, all the noble or royal remains cast forth from the violated tombs were once more deposited within them in presence of the chancellor, the necessary authorities and witnesses, a company of the gardes du corps and the clergy of St. Denis. Immense crowds flocked thither, by a bright moonlight which shone on the old towers, making the numberless torches which flashed on the walls almost useless; the broken and mingled bones were returned to their first place of repose, after a twenty-four years’ exile.
The Cathedral of St. Denis will shortly be in complete repair, though it was ravaged in the revolution, and roofless during twelve years; though it was several times offered for sale without finding a purchaser; and its destruction had been commanded, when Petit Radel, architecte des domaines, proposed, with a view to preserve it, that it should be left as it stood then, with uncovered walls, and rain, or snow, falling in its aisles, and serve as a kind of market-house in the fairs which occur frequently during the year!
Paris, and in our old apartment, 20th of July.
Unforeseen circumstances have postponed till next spring our ride to Italy, when I will continue these notes for you, and we shall go as heretofore, except that John will no longer be of the party; his disposition has become so warlike that we intend sending him back to Ireland.