His relatives had concealed the dangerous nature of his illness from the world. Madame Denis had written, even to Wagnière, and as late as May 26th, a letter of pretended hopefulness. King, priests, and prejudice were strong. Mignot and d’Hornoy knew well that it would be necessary to act cautiously, and to act at once. They had been professionally advised not to contest at law the question of burial.
From de Tersac they obtained a formal consent in writing that the body of Voltaire might be removed without ceremony. “I relinquish to that end all parochial rights.”
Gaultier declared, also in writing, that he had been to Voltaire at his request, and found him “not in a state to be heard in confession.”
On the night of May 30th the body was embalmed. The heart was taken out and given by Madame Denis to Villette.
Early in the morning of Sunday, May 31st, Mignot, taking with him the two priests’ declarations and Voltaire’s confession of faith made a few weeks before, left Paris in a post-chaise for his Abbey of Scellières, at Romilly-on-Seine, in Champagne, one hundred and ten miles from Paris.
On the same evening, when the capital was dark and the streets deserted, two other carriages left the Hôtel Villette. In one was the body of the dead man, dressed, and lying on the seat like a sleeping traveller. A servant was also in the carriage. In the next came d’Hornoy and two distant cousins of Voltaire, who, after Mignot, were his nearest male relatives. This dreadful cortège “stopped at no inn, alighted at no post-house.”
At midday on June 1st it reached Scellières. The Abbé Mignot had obtained, on the strength of the clerical certificates and Voltaire’s written profession of faith, the consent of his prior that the great man should be buried there.
At three o’clock in the afternoon the body was laid in the choir, and vespers for the dead were sung over it. It remained there all night, surrounded by torches.
Early the next morning, June 2d, before many of the assembled clergy of the district whom the prior had summoned, Voltaire was buried with full rites and the honourable and decent burial he had desired.
Only a small stone marked his resting-place, with the bald inscription “Here lies Voltaire.”