hem by the joy which
burst out without constraint; nor by the free talk of the Court, the
city, the army, of all Spain. But in order to sustain what she had done,
and cheaply pay her court to M. du Maine, Madame de Maintenon, and even
to the King, she ordered that the corpse of this hideous monster of
greatness and of fortune should be carried to the Escurial. This was
crowning the glory of M. de Vendome in good earnest; for no private
persons are buried in the Escurial, although several are to be found in
Saint-Denis. But meanwhile, until I speak of the visit I made to the
Escurial--I shall do so if I live long enough to carry these memoirs up
to the death of M. d'Orleans,--let me say something of that illustrious
sepulchre.

The Pantheon is the place where only the bodies of kings and queens who
have had posterity are admitted. In a separate place, near, though not
on the same floor, and resembling a library, the bodies of children, and
of queens who have had no posterity, are ranged. A third place, a sort
of antechamber to the last named, is rightly called "the rotting room;"
whilst the other improperly bears the same name. In whilst third room,
there is nothing to be seen but four bare walls and a table in the
middle. The walls being very thick, openings are made in them in which
the bodies are placed. Each body has an opening to itself, which is
afterwards walled up, so that nothing is seen. When it is thought that
the corpse has been closed up sufficiently long to be free from odour the
wall is opened, the body taken out, and put in a coffin which allows a
portion of it to be seen towards the feet. This coffin is covered with a
rich stuff and carried into an adjoining room.

The body of the Duc de Vendome had been walled up nine years when I
entered the Escurial. I was shown the place it occupied, smooth like
every part of the four walls and without mark. I gently asked the monks
who did me the honours of the place, when the body would be removed to
the other chamber. They would not satisfy my curiosity, showed some
indignation, and plainly intimated that this removal was not dreamt of,
and that as M. de Vendome had been so carefully walled up he might remain
so!

Harlay, formerly chief-president, of whom I have so often had occasion to
speak, died a short time after M. de Vendome. I have already made him
known. I will simply add an account of the humiliation to which this
haughty cynic was reduced. He hired a