“Did the French nation, or did they not, intend to offer up some of us English over the imperial grave? And were the games to be concluded by a massacre? It was said in the newspapers that Lord Granville had despatched circulars to all the English residents in Paris, begging them to keep their homes. The French journals announced this news, and warned us charitably of the fate intended for us. Had Lord Granville written? Certainly not to me. Or had he written to all except me? And was I the victim—the doomed one?—to be seized directly I showed my face in the Champs Elysées, and torn in pieces by French patriotism to the frantic chorus of the Marseillaise? Depend on it, Madame, that high and low in this city on Tuesday were not altogether at their ease, and that the bravest felt no small tremor. And be sure of this, that as his Majesty Louis Philippe took his nightcap off his royal head that morning, he prayed heartily that he might at night put it on in safety.”
Fortunately Thackeray’s courage conquered, and so we have the entertaining “Second Funeral of Napoleon,” by “Michael Angelo Titmarsh.”
In spite of all forebodings, the hostile displays were nothing more than occasional cries of “A bas les Anglais,” a few attempts to promenade the tricolor flag and drown Le Premier Capitaine du Monde by the Marseillaise, and a strong indignation when it was learned that the representatives of the allies had refused to be present at the final ceremony.
Most of the observers of the funeral attributed the good order of the crowd to the cold. A correspondent of the “National Intelligence” of that date says:
“If this business had fallen in the month of June or July, with all its excitements, spontaneous and elaborate, I should have deemed a sanguinary struggle between the government and the mob certain or highly probable. The present military array might answer for an approaching army of Cossacks. Forty or fifty thousand troops remain in the barracks within and camps without, besides the regular soldiery and National Guards in the field, ready to act against the domestic enemy.
“Providentially the cold increased to the utmost keenness; the genial currents of the insurrectionary and revolutionary soul were frozen.”
The climax of the pageant was in the temple of the Invalides. The spacious church was draped in the most magnificent and lavish fashion, and adorned with a perfect bewilderment of imperial emblems. The light was shut out by hangings of violet velvet; tripods blazing with colored flames, and thousands upon thousands of waxen candles in brilliant candelabra lighted the temple. Under the dome, in the place of the altar, stood the catafalque which was to receive the coffin.
THE FUNERAL MASS IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES. THE CATAFALQUE ON WHICH THE COFFIN RESTS IS SEEN IN THE DISTANCE.
From early in the morning the galleries, choir, and tribunes of the Invalides were packed by a distinguished company. There were the Deputies and Senators—neither of which had been represented in the cortége—the judicial and educational bodies, the officers of army and navy, the ambassadors and representatives of foreign governments, the king, and the court.