Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
History
Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1
Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
anticipated--perhaps it suggested--the one told by another prisoner on
the occasion of the Bastille being taken by the Revolutionists in 1789.
The funeral of Louis XV. was a very hurried affair. The king died
on the 10th of May, at twenty minutes past three. The whole Court
instantly took flight, and there only remained with the body a few
persons required for the care of it. The utmost precipitation was used
in removing it from Versailles. None of the usual formalities were
observed. Everyone was afraid to go near the body--undertakers, like
the rest, feared the small-pox, of which the king had died--and the
corpse was carried to Saint-Denis in an ordinary travelling carriage,
under the care of forty members of the body-guard and a few pages. The
escort hurried on the dead man in the most indecent manner, and all
along the road the greatest levity was shown by the spectators. The
public-houses were filled with uproarious guests; and it is said that
when the landlord of one of them tried to silence a troublesome customer
by reminding him that the king was about to pass, the man replied: "The
rogue starved us in his lifetime. Does he want us to perish of thirst
now that he is dead?" A jest different in style, but showing equally in
what esteem Louis XV. was held by his subjects, is attributed to the
Abbé of Sainte-Geneviève. Being taunted with the powerlessness of his
saint and the little effect which the opening of his shrine, formerly
so efficacious, had produced, he replied: "What, gentlemen, have you to
complain of? Is he not dead?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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