The building was completely hung with black: each pillar bore an escutcheon, in the centre of which was blazoned a golden lion, surmounted by the word ‘Obiit,’ and the date of the child’s death. The bier, placed in the middle of the church, and at the entrance of the choir, was raised upon a pedestal covered with black velvet, bordered with ermine and embroidered with lions. The bier itself was covered with a white pall, on the top of which was placed a wreath of roses, just like the one which lay upon the coffin whilst in the temporary chapel, and was surmounted by a black canopy bordered with heavy gold fringe, from which fell four large curtains, enveloping the pedestal. Round the coffin burned numerous wax tapers, and on the four panels of this funereal erection, and at each corner of the altar, were the royal arms of Belgium. The Archbishop of Malines was the principal officiator at the ceremony, and it was he who pronounced the Absolution, standing beneath a canopy of crimson velvet fringed with gold, which had been raised for him, to the right of the altar. The suffragan bishops took a part in the service; but the mass was sung.
Directly it was concluded, the coffin was placed in the chapel in front of the vault where King Leopold I. and Queen Marie-Louise already rest, and there it will remain until the three coffins can be together moved to the permanent vault in course of erection in the new church at Laeken.
Then the king came forward, and, having placed on the coffin of his child a wreath of white flowers, left the church to return to the palace. He was terribly moved, and had difficulty in restraining his tears until he should have regained his carriage.
The Mass for the Dead was then resumed, and lasted for an hour and a-half; and it was two hours before the funeral ceremonies were finally completed.
On the following Wednesday, the church of Ste Gudule and St Michel at Brussels, having been hung in the same lavish manner with black and white, a second Grand Mass was said and sung there for the repose of the little prince’s soul; and then the whole business was over, and people began to talk of something else. But it will be a long time before Belgium forgets her Prince Royal or the bereavement of her king.
The funeral was, perhaps, as grand a one as ever was given for a child, and the decorations of the churches, biers, and coffin, things to be remembered; but the way in which true Belgians will love best to think of Leopold-Ferdinand, Duc de Brabant, will be the recollection, treasured by his father and mother—the recollection of a pure dead face, freed from all suffering and pain, lying on its once familiar bed, a little virgin clasped in the inanimate hand, and a wreath of white roses laid upon the pillow; but above all, of a happy soul freed from the suffering of sin, and in the enjoyment of a kingdom from the possession of which the temptations attendant upon wearing an earthly crown might have debarred him.
THE END.
