Then Marshal Soult put the Emperor's sword into the king's hand. "General Bertrand," said the king, "I charge you to lay it on the coffin of the Emperor. General Gourgaud, place the Emperor's hat also on the coffin."
Then began the appropriate religious ceremonies, and during the following week the public were admitted to view the coffin as it lay in state in the Chapelle Ardente. The crowd was very great. Women fainted daily, and many were almost pressed to death against the gilded rails.
After all, there was little to see. The coffin was enclosed in a sort of immense cage to keep it from intrusion, the air was heavy with incense, and the light was too dimly religious to show anything with distinctness.
A splendid tomb has since been erected to Napoleon in the Chapel of the Invalides, where he rests under the care of the war-worn soldiers of France. Few now can be living who fought under him. Not a Bonaparte was at his funeral; the only one then upon French soil was in a prison.
Napoleon sleeps where in his will he prayed that his remains might rest,—on the banks of the Seine.
[CHAPTER V.]
SOME CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.
After the signing of the treaty of 1841, which restored the entente cordiale between France and England, and satisfied the other European Powers, Louis Philippe and his family were probably in the plenitude of their prosperity. The Duke of Orleans had been happily married; and although his wife was a Protestant,—which was not wholly satisfactory to Queen Marie Amélie,—the character of the Duchesse Hélène was so lovely that she won all hearts, both in her husband's family and among the people.
On the occasion of the fêtes given in Paris at the nuptials of the Duke of Orleans, in 1837, the sad presage of misfortune that had accompanied the marriage festivities of Marie Antoinette was repeated. One of the spectacles given to the Parisians was a sham attack on a sham citadel of Antwerp in the Champ de Mars. The crowd was immense, but all went well so long as the spectacle lasted. When the crowd began to move away, a panic took place. The old and the feeble were thrown down and trampled on. Twenty-four persons were killed, the fêtes were broken up, and all hearts were saddened both by the disaster and the omen.
One part of the festivities on that occasion consisted in the opening of the galleries of historical paintings at Versailles,—a magnificent gift made by the Citizen King to his people.