the windows are quite
darkened; the cistern-wheel moves discordant on its axis; Life, like a
spent steed, is panting towards the goal. In their remote apartments,
Dauphin and Dauphiness stand road-ready; all grooms and equerries booted
and spurred: waiting for some signal to escape the house of pestilence.
(One grudges to interfere with the beautiful theatrical 'candle,' which
Madame Campan (i. 79) has lit on this occasion, and blown out at the
moment of death. What candles might be lit or blown out, in so large an
Establishment as that of Versailles, no man at such distance would like
to affirm: at the same time, as it was two o'clock in a May Afternoon,
and these royal Stables must have been some five or six hundred yards
from the royal sick-room, the 'candle' does threaten to go out in spite
of us. It remains burning indeed--in her fantasy; throwing light on much
in those Memoires of hers.) And, hark! across the Oeil-de-Boeuf, what
sound is that; sound 'terrible and absolutely like thunder'? It is
the rush of the whole Court, rushing as in wager, to salute the new
Sovereigns: Hail to your Majesties! The Dauphin and Dauphiness are King
and Queen! Over-powered with many emotions, they two fall on their knees
together, and, with streaming tears, exclaim, "O God, guide us, protect
us; we are too young to reign!"--Too young indeed.

Thus, in any case, 'with a sound absolutely like thunder,' has the
Horologe of Time struck, and an old Era passed away. The Louis that was,
lies forsaken, a mass of abhorred clay; abandoned 'to some poor persons,
and priests of the Chapelle Ardente,'--who make haste to put him 'in two
lead coffins, pouring in abundant spirits of wine.' The new Louis with
his Court is rolling towards Choisy, through the summer afternoon: the
royal tears still flow; but a word mispronounced by Monseigneur d'Artois
sets them all laughing, and they weep no more. Light mortals, how ye
walk your light life-minuet, over bottomless abysses, divided from you
by a film!

For the rest, the proper authorities felt that no Funeral could be too
unceremonious. Besenval himself thinks it was unceremonious enough. Two
carriages containing two noblemen of the usher species, and a Versailles
clerical person; some score of mounted pages, some fifty palfreniers;
these, with torches, but not so much as in black, start from Versailles
on the second evening with their leaden bier. At a high trot they start;
and keep up that pace. F