improvement.

His young and beautiful wife excused him in everything, ignoring, and
wishing to ignore, the extent of his guilt and frivolity.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A Funeral and Diversions.--Sinister Dream.--Funeral Orations of the
Queen.

It remains for me to relate certain rather curious circumstances in
relation to the late Queen, after which I shall speak of her no more in
these Memoirs.

She was left for ten days, lying in state, in the mortuary chapel of
Versailles, where mass was being said by priests at four altars from
morning till evening. She was finally removed from this magnificent
Palace of Enchantment to Saint Denis. Numerous carriages followed the
funeral car, and in all these carriages were the high officials, as well
as the ladies, who had belonged to her. But what barbarity! what
ingratitude! what a scandal! In all these mournful carriages, people
talked and laughed and made themselves agreeable; and the body-guards, as
well as the gendarmes and musketeers, took turns to ride their horses
into the open plain and shoot at the birds.

Monsieur le Dauphin, after Saint Denis, went to lie at the Tuileries,
before betaking himself to the service on the following day at Notre
Dame. In the evening, instead of remaining alone and in seclusion in his
apartment, as a good son ought to have done, he went to the Palais Royal
to see the Princess Palatine and her husband, whom he had had with him
all the day; he must have distraction, amusement, and even merry
conversations, such as simple bourgeois would not permit themselves on so
solemn an occasion, were it only out of decorum.

In the midst of these ridiculous and indefensible conversations, the news
arrived that the King had broken his arm. The Marquis de Mosny had
started on the instant in order to inform the young Prince of it; and Du
Saussoi, equerry of his Majesty, arrived half an hour later, giving the
same news with the details.

The King (who was hunting during the obsequies of his wife) had fallen
off his horse, which he had not been able to prevent from stumbling into
a ditch full of tall grass and foliage. M. Felix, a skilful and prudent
surgeon, had just set the arm, which was only put out of joint. The King
sent word to the Dauphin not to leave the Tuileries, and to attend the
funeral ceremony on the morrow.

The fair of Saint Laurence was being held at this moment, although the
city of Paris had manifested an intention of postponing it