e of confession, of
absolution, and of the last sacrament. The priests knew that he was
not in earnest, and Voltaire knew that they would not allow him to be
buried in any of the cemeteries of Paris. His death was kept a secret.
The Abbe Mignot made arrangements for the burial at
Romilli-on-the-Seine, more than 100 miles from Paris. Sunday evening,
on the last day of May, 1778, the body of Voltaire, clad in a dressing
gown, clothed to resemble an invalid, posed to simulate life, was
placed in a carriage; at its side a servant, whose business it was to
keep it in position. To this carriage were attached six horses, so
that people might think a great lord was going to his estates. Another
carriage followed in which were a grand-nephew and two cousins of
Voltaire. All night they traveled, and on the following day arrived at
the courtyard of the abbey. The necessary papers were shown, the mass
was performed in the presence of the body, and Voltaire found burial.
A few moments afterward the prior who "for charity had given a little
earth" received from his bishop a menacing letter forbidding the burial
of Voltaire. It was too late. He could not then be removed, and he
was allowed to remain in peace until 1791.

Voltaire was dead. The foundations of State and throne had been
sapped. The people were becoming acquainted with the real kings and
with the actual priests. Unknown men born in misery and want, men
whose fathers and mothers had been pavement for the rich, were rising
towards the light and their shadowy faces were emerging from darkness.
Labor and thought became friends. That is, the gutter and the attic
fraternized. The monsters of the night and the angels of dawn--the
first thinking of revenge and the others dreaming of equality, liberty
and fraternity. For 400 years the Bastille had been the outward symbol
of oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a
perpetual threat. It was the last and often the first argument of king
and priest. Its dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its
secret cells, its instruments of torture, denied the existence of God.
In 1789, on the 14th of July, the people, the multitude, frenzied by
suffering, stormed and captured the Bastille. The battlecry was, "Vive
le Voltaire!"

In 1791 permission was given to place in the Pantheon the ashes of
Voltaire. He had been buried 110 miles from Paris. Buried by stealth
he was to be removed by a nation.