By the serene moonrise of a summer night, his body was put under the ground on an island in the midst of a small lake, where poplars throw shadows over the still water, silently figuring the destiny of mortals. Here it remained for sixteen years. Then amid the roar of cannon, the crash of trumpet and drum, and the wild acclamations of a populace gone mad in exultation, terror, fury, it was ordered that the poor dust should be transported to the national temple of great men.
FOOTNOTES:
[385] Streckeisen, ii. 315-328.
[386] Streckeisen, ii. 337.
[387] June 19, 1767. Corr., v. 172.
[388] Corr., v. 267, 375.
[389] Corr., v. 330-381, 408, etc.
[390] Bourgoin, Aug. 1768, to March, 1769. Monquin, to July 1770.
[391] See above, [vol. i. chap. iv].
[392] The life of Bernardin de St. Pierre (1737-1814) was nearly as irregular as that of his friend and master. But his character was essentially crafty and selfish, like that of many other sentimentalists of the first order.