“My dear young gentleman,” said Mr Thorpe seriously, “the King of France is a much more powerful monarch than even His Majesty King George! I must beg to correct you on a point of history. He is absolute ruler, not only of all the land we see, but over the property, nay, the very persons of his subjects—he is the State himself—as the great Louis XIV. so emphatically told his nobles. Think of those lettres du cachet, given away even blank in thousands upon thousands—a kind of money, as it were—exchanged by the courtiers for all kinds of objects—with which, for all one knows, were he worth notice from some enemy, he may be sent to a Bastille on no account whatever, to remain there unknown the rest of his life!”
Charles Willoughby still endeavoured to look indifferent, though the slight whistle died between his teeth, while he pushed his cap down on his head, deeply resolved never to lift it to a French king. Mr Thorpe, drawn into unwonted earnestness, by the expression of the ladies’ faces, sought to reassure them.
“The character of the present king is such as to make this power a benefit,” he said. “There seems a rapid decrease of superstition in the church. Really, Lady Willoughby, there was something idolatrous in this excessive honour to a human being! To conceive that at his Majesty’s death, while the body lay for forty days embalmed in lead, a waxen effigy was placed in the grand hall of entertainment, and served by gentlemen-waiters at the usual times, while the meal was blessed by the almoner, the meat carved, and the wine presented to the figure; its hands were washed and thanks returned. The queen, in white mourning—”
“In white mourning?” inquired the governess, with interest.
“In white, I think, Mrs Mason—sat for six weeks in a chamber lighted by lamps alone. For a whole year she could not stir out of her own apartments, if she had received the intelligence there. Although similar ceremonies were observed after her own decease.”
The feminine impression of former evils in France grew deep. The tutor could not say whether his present majesty would require such honours. There was only one person of inferior rank who had ever been distinguished by a shade of the same respect, though for a shorter time her effigy had sat. It was the far Gabrielle d’Estrées. “Who was she?” Rose asked,—“and why”—
“Miss Willoughby,” interrupted Mrs Mason with a sudden air of severity, rustling and extending and drawing herself erect, “there are some questions too shocking and improper for us to ask?” Mr Thorpe, with a frightened look, sat dumb in his saddle; yet Mrs Mason professed to know history, and her charge must surely learn it: nay, unknown to them all, among the distant chateaus, palaces, and mansions they were gazing at, were St Germain’s in the blue eminence, which the great Louis had given to La Vallière when he wearied of her for Madame de Montespan; and Luciennes, where Madame du Barry was then living in fashionable retirement. But the one had been gallant, stately even in his vices; the royal patron of the other, in his dissipations, had at least been elegant. Probably Mr Thorpe’s confusion led him to a graver topic.
“The chronicler I have lately perused,” he said, hastily, “is really worth study. Nothing can be so mournfully salutary. As the coffin was borne at night to yonder Notre Dame, and thence thereafter to the ancient town of St Denis, the streets were hung with black, and before every house was planted a tall lighted torch of white wax. First went the Capuchins, in their coarse sackcloth girt with ropes, bearing their huge cross, crowned with thorns—then five hundred poor men, under their bailiff, all in mourning as for a father—the magistrates and courts of justice, the parliament of Paris in rich sable furs, the high clergy in purple and gold—followed by the funeral car drawn by white horses, covered with black velvet crossed with white satin, and the long train of officers of the household.”
The great knowledge of the tutor as to textile fabrics interested Mrs Mason. “Think of the expense!” Lady Willoughby said.
“This vast procession,” pursued Mr Thorpe with solemnity, “went on in silence, while, as the chronicler quaintly expresses it, ‘ever and aye the royal musicians made a sound of lamentation, with instruments clothed in crape, very fierce and marvellously dolorous to hear or to behold, until they arrived at the church of St Denis,—blessed be his name! And the bier was borne into the choir, it being a-blaze with lamps and tapers beyond number, and the service lasted for the King’s soul several days—whereupon was the body let down into the vault, but not admitted within the inner chamber until the end of the next reign—and Normandy, the most ancient king of arms, summoned with a loud voice, that the high dignitaries should therein deposit their ensigns and truncheons of command—which done, the sacred oriflamme of France was let fall down upon the coffin, until the fleur-de-lis began with the noble Bourbons—and the king of arms cried three times so that the vaults heard and replied—Ho! the king is dead! The king is dead! The king is dead! And when silence had been renewed, the same voice proclaimed—Long live the king!—and all the other heralds repeated it. Then was all finished, and they departed joyously.’ Really, in those older writers, compared with those of the present day,—however superstitious, there is considerable profit to be found.”