Christians, ye who have been called from all sides to this ceremony by the memory of a great Queen,--daughter, wife, mother of powerful kings and of sovereigns of three kingdoms,--this speech will bring before you one of those conspicuous examples which spread before the eyes of the world its absolute vanity. You will see in a single life all the extremes of human affairs: boundless felicity and boundless misery; a long and peaceful possession of one of the world's noblest crowns; all that can be given of the glories of birth and rank gathered upon a head which is afterwards exposed to all the insults of fortune; the good cause at first rewarded by success, then met by sudden turns and unheard-of changes; rebellion long restrained, at last over-riding everything; unbridled licentiousness; the destruction of all laws; royal majesty insulted by crimes before unknown; usurpation and tyranny under the name of liberty; a queen pursued by her enemies, and finding no refuge in either of her kingdoms; her own native land become a melancholy place of exile; many voyages across the sea undertaken by a princess, in spite of the tempest; the ocean surprised at being crossed so often, in such different ways, and for so different causes; a throne shamefully destroyed and miraculously restored. Those are the lessons which are given by God to the kings; thus does He show to the world the emptiness of its pomps and splendors. If I lack words, if expression is unable to do justice to a subject of such magnitude and loftiness, things alone will speak sufficiently; the heart[5] of a great queen, formerly raised by long years of prosperity and suddenly plunged into an abyss of bitterness, will speak loudly enough; and if private characters are not allowed to give lessons to princes upon such strange occurrences, a king lends me his voice to tell them. "Et nunc, reges, intelligite; erudimini, qui judicatis terram:" Understand now, ye kings of the earth; learn, ye who judge the world. [Footnote 5: The Queen's heart was kept in the church where Bossuet was speaking.]