The Second Funeral of NapoleonThackeray, William Makepeace
History
The Second Funeral of Napoleon
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 -- Death and burial
First, there was a tall handsome cross-bearer, bearing a long gold
cross, of which the front was turned towards his grace the Archbishop.
Then came a double row of about sixteen incense-boys, dressed in white
surplices: the first boy, about six years old, the last with whiskers
and of the height of a man. Then followed a regiment of priests in black
tippets and white gowns: they had black hoods, like the moon when she is
at her third quarter, wherewith those who were bald (many were, and fat
too) covered themselves. All the reverend men held their heads meekly
down, and affected to be reading in their breviaries.
After the Priests came some Bishops of the neighboring districts, in
purple, with crosses sparkling on their episcopal bosoms.
Then came, after more priests, a set of men whom I have never seen
before--a kind of ghostly heralds, young and handsome men, some of them
in stiff tabards of black and silver, their eyes to the ground, their
hands placed at right angles with their chests.
Then came two gentlemen bearing remarkable tall candlesticks, with
candles of corresponding size. One was burning brightly, but the wind
(that chartered libertine) had blown out the other, which nevertheless
kept its place in the procession--I wondered to myself whether the
reverend gentleman who carried the extinguished candle, felt disgusted,
humiliated, mortified--perfectly conscious that the eyes of many
thousands of people were bent upon that bit of refractory wax. We all of
us looked at it with intense interest.
Another cross-bearer, behind whom came a gentleman carrying an
instrument like a bedroom candlestick.
His Grandeur Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris: he was in black and
white, his eyes were cast to the earth, his hands were together at right
angles from his chest: on his hands were black gloves, and on the black
gloves sparkled the sacred episcopal--what do I say?--archiepiscopal
ring. On his head was the mitre. It is unlike the godly coronet that
figures upon the coach-panels of our own Right Reverend Bench. The
Archbishop's mitre may be about a yard high: formed within probably of
consecrated pasteboard, it is without covered by a sort of watered silk
of white and silver. On the two peaks at the top of the mitre are two
very little spangled tassels, that frisk and twinkle about in a very
agreeable manner.
Monseigneur stood opposite to us for some time, when I had the
opportunity to note the above remarkable phenomena. He stood opposite me
for some time, keeping his eyes steadily on the ground, his hands before
him, a small clerical train following after. Why didn't they move? There
was the National Guard keeping on presenting arms, the little drummers
going on rub-dub-dub--rub-dub-dub--in the same steady, slow way, and the
Procession never moved an inch. There was evidently, to use an elegant
phrase, a hitch somewhere.
[Enter a fat priest who bustles up to the drum-major.]
Fat priest--"Taisez-vous."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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