Beside the king stood an officer, bearing a cushion; on it lay the sword of Austerlitz. Marshal Soult handed it to the king, who, turning to Bertrand, said:
“General, I commission you to place the emperor’s glorious sword on the bier.”
And Bertrand, trembling with emotion, laid the sword reverently on his idol’s coffin. The great company watched the scene in deepest silence. The only sound which broke the stillness was the half-stifled sobs of the gray-haired soldiers of the Invalides, who stood in places of honor near the catafalque.
The king and the procession returned to their places, and then followed a majestic funeral mass. The Requiem of Mozart, as rendered that day by all the great singers of Paris, is one of the historic musical performances of France. The archbishop then sprinkled the coffin with holy water, the king taking the brush from him for the same sacred duty.
The funeral was over. Napoleon lay at last “on the banks of the Seine, among the people whom he had so loved.” For eight days after the ceremony the church remained open to the public, and in spite of the terrible cold thousands stood from morning until night waiting patiently their turn to enter. After hours of waiting, they frequently were sent away, only to come back earlier the next day. In this company were numbers of veterans of the imperial army who had made the journey to Paris from distant parts of the kingdom. In the delegation from Belgium were many who had walked part of the way, not being able to pay full coach fare.
Banquets and dinners followed the funeral. At one of these, a “sacred toast to the immortal memory” was drunk kneeling. In a dozen theatres of Paris the translation of the remains was dramatized. At the Porte Saint-Martin, the actor who took the part of Sir Hudson Lowe had a season of terror, he being in constant danger of violence from the wrought-up audience.
The advertising columns of the newspapers of the day blazed for weeks with announcements of Napoleonized articles; the holiday gifts prepared for the booths of the boulevards and squares, and for the magnificent shops of the Palais Royal and the fashionable streets, whatever their nature—to eat, to wear, to look at—were made up as memorials. Paris seemed to be Napoleon-mad.
In the February following the funeral, the coffin of Napoleon was transferred from the catafalque in the centre of the church to a chapelle ardente in the basement at one side. The chapel was richly draped in silk and gold, and hung with trophies. On the coffin lay the imperial crown, the emperor’s sword, and the hat which he had worn at Eylau, and which he had given to Gros when he ordered the battle of Eylau painted. Over the coffin waved the flags taken at Austerlitz.
Here Napoleon’s body lay until the mausoleum was finished. This magnificent structure was designed by Visconti, the eminent architect, who had planned the entire decorations of the 15th of December. Visconti utterly ignored the appropriations in executing the monument, ordering what he wanted, regardless of its cost. For the marble from which Pradier made the twelve colossal figures around the tomb, he sent to Carrara; the porphyry which was used to inclose the coffin, he obtained in Finland.
In this magnificent sepulchre Napoleon still sleeps. Duroc and Bertrand lie on either side of the entrance to the chamber, guarding him in death as in life; and to the right and left of the entrance to the church are the tombs of his brothers Jerome and Joseph. On the stones about him are inscribed the names he made glorious! over him are draped scores of trophies; attending him are the veterans of the Invalides.