That he, the incarnate Solecism, had five senses; that there were Flying Tables (Tables Volantes, which vanish through the floor, to come back reloaded), and a Parc-aux-cerfs. Whereby at least we have again this historical curiosity a human being in an original position; swimming passively, as on some boundless "Mother of Dead Dogs," towards issues which he partly saw. For Louis had withal a kind of insight in him. So when a new Minister of Marine, or what else it might be, came announcing his new era, the Scarlet-woman would hear from the lips of Majesty at supper: "Yes, he spread out his ware like another; promised the beautifulest things in the world; not a thing of which will come he does not know this region; he will see.' Or again: "'Tis the twentieth time I have heard all that; France will never get a Navy, I believe." How touching also was this: "If I were Lieutenant of Police, I would prohibit those Paris cabriolets." Doomed mortal ;-for is it not a doom to be Solecism incarnate! A new Roi Fainéant, King Donothing; but with the strangest new Mayor of the Palace: no bowlegged Pepin now for Mayor, but that same cloud-capt, fire-breathing Spectre of DEMOCRACY; incalculable, which is enveloping the world!-Was Louis, then, no wickeder than this or the other private Donothing and Eatall; such as we often enough see, under the name of Man of Pleasure, cumbering God's diligent Creation, for a time? Say, wretcheder! His Lifesolecism was seen and felt of a whole scandalised world; him endless Oblivion cannot engulf, and swallow to endless depths,-not yet for a generation or two. However, be this as it will, we remark, not without interest, that "on the evening of the 4th," Dame Dubarry issues from the sick-room, with perceptible "trouble in her visage." It is the fourth evening of May, year of Grace 1774. Such a whispering in the Eil-de-Bœuf! Is he dying then? What can be said, is that Dubarry seems making up her packages; she sails weeping through her gilt boudoirs, as if taking leave. D'Aiguillon and Company are near their last card; nevertheless they will not yet throw up the game. But as for the sacramental controversy, it is as good as settled without being mentioned; Louis sends for his Abbé Moudon in the course of next night; is confessed by him, some say for the space of "seventeen minutes," and demands the sacraments of his own accord. Nay already, in the afternoon, behold is not this your Sorceress Dubarry with the handkerchief at her eyes, mounting D'Aiguillon's chariot; rolling off in his Duchess's consolatory arms? She is gone and her place knows her no more. Vanish, false Sorceress; into Space! Needless to hover at neighbouring Ruel; for thy day is done. Shut are the royal palace-gates for evermore; hardly in coming years shalt thou, under cloud of night, descend once, in black domino, like a black night-bird, and disturb the fair Antoinette's musicparty in the Park; all Birds of Paradise flying from thee, and musical windpipes growing mute. Thou unclean, yet unmalignant, not unpitiable thing! What a course was thine: from that first trucklebed (in Joan of Arc's country) where thy mother bore thee, with tears, to an unnamed father: forward, through lowest subterranean depths, and over highest sunlit heights, of Harlotdom and Rascaldom-to the guillotine-axe, which sheers away thy vainly whimpering head! Rest there uncursed; only buried and abolished; what else befitted thee? Louis, meanwhile, is in considerable impatience for his sacraments; sends more than once to the window, to see whether they are not coming. Be of comfort, Louis, what comfort thou canst: they are under way, these sacraments. Towards six in the morning, they arrive. Cardinal Grand-Almoner Roche-Aymon is here in pontificals, with his pyxes and his tools: he approaches the royal pillow; elevates his wafer; mutters or seems to mutter somewhat ;-and so (as the Abbé Georgel, in words that stick to one, expresses it) has Louis "made the amende honorable to God: so does your Jesuit construe it." Wa, Wa," as the wild Clotaire groaned out, when life was departing, "what great God is this that pulls down the strength of the strongest kings!" The amende honorable, what "legal apology" you will, to God:-but not, if D'Aiguillon can help it, to man. Dubarry still hovers in his mansion at Ruel; and while there is life, there is hope. Grand-Almoner RocheAymon, accordingly (for he seems to be in the secret), has no sooner seen his pyxes and gear repacked, than he is stepping majestically forth again, as if the work were done! But King's Confessor Abbé Moudon starts forward; with anxious acidulent face, twitches him by the sleeve; whispers in his ear. Whereupon the poor Cardinal has to turn round; and declare audibly, "that his Majesty repents of any subjects of scandal he may have given (a pu donner); and purposes, by the strength of Heaven assisting him, to avoid the like-for the future!" Words listened to by Richelieu with mastiffface, growing blacker; and answered to, aloud, "with an epithet," which Besenval will not repeat. Richelieu, conqueror of Minorca, companion of FlyingTable orgies, perforator of bed-room walls, is thy day also done? Old Alas, the Chapel organs may keep going; the Shrine of Sainte Geneviève be let down, and pulled up again, -without effect. In the evening the whole Court, with Dauphin and Dauphiness, assist at the Chapel: priests are hoarse with chanting their "Prayers of Forty Hours;" and the heaving bellows blow. Almost frightful! For the very heaven blackens; battering rain-torrents dash, with thunder; almost drowning the organ's voice and electric fire-flashes make the very flambeaux on the altar pale. So that the most, as we are told, retired, when it was over, with hurried steps, "in a state of meditation (recueillement),” and said little or nothing. So it has lasted for the better half of a fortnight; the Dubarry gone almost a week. Besenval says, all the world was getting impatient que cela finit; that poor This tenth May day falls into the loathsome sick-bed; but dull, unnoticed there: for they that look out of the windows are quite darkened; the cistern wheel moves discordant on its axis; Life, like a spent steed, is panting towards the goal. In their remote apartments, Dauphin and Dauphiness stand road-ready; all grooms and equerries booted and spurred: waiting for some signal to escape the house of pestilence.1 And, hark! across the Eil-de-Bœuf, what sound is that; sound "terrible and absolutely like thunder?" It is the rush of the whole Court, rushing as in wager, to salute the new Sovereigns: Hail to your Majesties! The Dauphin and Dauphiness are King and Queen! Overpowered with many emotions, they two fall on their knees together, and, with streaming tears, exclaim: "O God, guide us, protect us; we are too young to reign!"Too young indeed. But thus, in any case, "with a sound absolutely like thunder," has the Horologe of Time struck, and an old Era passed away. The Louis that was, lies forsaken, a mass of abhorred clay; abandoned "to some poor persons, and priests of the Chapelle Ardente, "-who make haste to put him "in two lead coffins, pouring in abundant spirits of wine." The new Louis with his Court is rolling towards Choisy, through the summer afternoon the royal tears still flow; but a word mispronounced by Monseigneur d'Artois sets them all laughing, and they weep no more. Light mortals, how 1 One grudges to interfere with the beautiful theatrical "candle," which Madame Campan (i. 79) has lit on this occasion, and blown out at the moment of death. What candles might be lit or blown out, in so large an Establishment as that of Versailles, no man at such distance would like to affirm: at the same time, as it was two o'clock in a May Afternoon, and these royal Stables must have been some five or six hundred yards from the royal sick-room, the "candle" does threaten to go out in spite of us. It remains burning indeed-in her fantasy; throwing light on much in those Mémoires of hers. ye walk your light life-minuet, over bottomless abysses, divided from you by a film! For the rest, the proper authorities felt that no Funeral could be too unceremonious. Besenval himself thinks it was unceremonious enough. Two carriages containing two noblemen of the usher species, and a Versailles clerical person; some score of mounted pages, some fifty palfreniers: these, with torches, but not so much as in black, start from Versailles on the second evening, with their leaden bier. At a high trot, they start; and keep up that pace. For the jibes (brocards) of those Parisians, who stand planted in two rows, all the way to St. Denis, and "give vent to their pleasantry, the characteristic of the nation," do not tempt one to slacken. Towards midnight the vaults of St. Denis receive their own: unwept by any eye of all these; if not by poor Loque his neglected Daughter's, whose Nunnery is hard by. Him they crush down, and huddle under-ground, in this impatient way; him and his era of sin and tyranny and shame for behold a New Era is come; the future all the brighter that the past was base. III THE PROCESSION OF THE STATES-GENERAL (VOL. I, BOOK IV, CHAPTER IV) BUT now finally the Sun, on Monday the 4th of May, has risen ;-unconcerned, as if it were no special day. And yet, as his first rays could strike music from the Memnon's Statue on the Nile, what tones were these, so thrilling, tremulous, of preparation and foreboding, which he awoke in every bosom at Versailles ! Huge Paris, in all conceivable and inconceivable vehicles, is pouring itself forth; from each Town and Village come subsidiary rills. Versailles is a very sea of men. But above all, from the Church of St. Louis to the Church of Notre-Dame: one vast suspended-billow of Life,—with |