Donné à Saint-Germain en Laye, le XXIIe jour de Novembre 1675. _Signé_, Louis. Et plus bas, Colbert. Et sur le reply: A nos chers et amez les abbé, prieur et religieux de l'abbaye royale de Saint-Denys, en France." The projected Bourbon chapel was never built, and the Revolution found the monument of Turenne in the same chapel, that of S. Eustache, whence it was trundled out as late as April, 1796, and transported to the Petits-Augustins; for up to that time Turenne, not being a royal person, had been left in peace. The demolition of the tombs seems to have gone on fitfully from 1793 to 1795, as a little diversion between more exciting events. After the emigration of the nobility in 1790; the flight of the King to Varennes, and his false swearing to uphold the constitution in 1792; and his treachery in carrying on a correspondence with the enemies at the frontier; the popular anger waxed strong, and led to the storming of the Tuileries on the 10th August,[23] which event was to be celebrated the next year by the demolition of the tombs of S. Denis. Louis XVI. had paid the penalty of his crimes; and like his forerunner, Charles I., had shown that if he did not know how to live, he at least had learnt how to die; but his ancestors had got off scot-free. Why should they be allowed to rest peacefully, what remained of them? Besides, lead was wanted for ammunition; and, just as the church bells were in requisition for guns, and gold and silver vessels for coinage, so the leaden coffins and roofs of churches could be melted up into cannon balls. Imagine the stampede of Parisians along that paved road that led from Paris to S. Denis. Only the other day, when the trams were instituted, were those great rough stones taken up. At Versailles you may still see the like, the paved part of the road very much curved, with mud paths on each side--side walks for the people, while the centre pavement was reserved for the quality. They radiate from the palace, and enabled the "Roi Soleil" to visit his satellites at Bellevue, the Trianon, Meudon, and S. Germain, without danger of his lumbering coach sticking in the mire, to which he and his belonged. Many must have been the journeys from the capital to S. Denis, which the decree of the Convention sanctioned--journeys accompanied by crowbars and pickaxes for the better destruction of the tombs. It was a ghastly idea, but in no wise an exaggerated revenge for the kingly brutalities perpetrated upon the living bodies of Ravaillac, Damiens, and such like _canaille_.[24] We have a full account of the whole affair from the pen of an eye-witness, one Dom Poirier, the custodian of the archives of the monastery, who was present when the commission carried out the decree of the Convention of the 31st July, 1793. The report of this commission is so curious that I will quote it in full. After assigning to the children of _Louis le conspirateur_[25] the portion of simple citizens, Barrère