Our great American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, says: “To be buried alive is beyond question the most terrific of all extremes which have ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.”

Is any death more horrible than this? To be embraced, unprepared, down in the deep dark grave! To awake again with the greatest longing for life, suffering the most severe bodily tortures, in the coffin! To realize that there is no escape from inevitable death! Who can conceive the feeling of finding one’s self in the grave, the blood rushing to the head, the body trembling convulsively in the vain endeavors of casting off the oppressing weight, the organs of respiration laboring without avail for air, the muscles of the whole body working without result, and above all, being mindful of certain death near at hand?

From time to time anti-crematists, advocates of earth burial, of course, assert that cases of burial alive are exceedingly rare and occur very seldom. This is very erroneous. Our newspapers teem with the reports of such cases, and one must be a careless reader indeed not to observe them. As I am a daily peruser of some specimen of the secular press, and hardly anything of importance escapes my notice, I succeeded in making a 181collection of cases of burial alive, from which I will cite some striking examples. A Wheeling, W. Va., special despatch to the Chicago Tribune relates the terrible fate of a young married lady as follows:—

“One of those ghastly stories of interment before life has become extinct, which cause an involuntary shudder of horror to pass through the reader, is current in this city to-night. The victim, so the story goes, is a young married lady of 20 years. In May of last year, three months after her marriage, the lady was taken violently ill, and after lingering for ten days, apparently died. There were certain peculiarities about the appearance of the supposed corpse, however, which caused a suspicion in the mind of the attending physician that his patient might be in a trance, but after keeping the body for four days with no signs of returning life, the remains were consigned to the grave, temporary interment being made in the family lot in an abandoned graveyard. A day or two ago the body was disinterred prior to removal to another cemetery. To the surprise of the sexton the coffin-lid showed signs of displacement, and on its being removed the grave-digger was horrified to find the remains turned face downward, the hand filled with long tufts of hair torn from the head, and the face, neck, and bosom deeply scratched and scarred, while the lining of the coffin had been torn into fragments in the desperate efforts of the entombed victim to escape from her horrible fate. Since the discovery the young husband has been prostrated, and his life is despaired of. The names are withheld.”

The sequent curious case of premature interment occurred at Leipsic, a small town in the state of Ohio. A lady who was pregnant died suddenly. She was put 182in a coffin and placed, temporarily, to await the burial-day, in a vault. Some of her relatives, however, thought that she had been disposed of too hastily and caused her coffin to be opened. When the air struck her body, she revived. She was taken home and recovered entirely, being soon after delivered of female twins.

A despatch from Woodstock, Ont., dated Jan. 18, 1886, to the Detroit Evening News states:—

“One year ago a girl named Collins died, as was supposed, while playing on the street. The body was moved last week from where it had been buried in the family plot, and the parents wishing to view the remains, had the coffin opened, when to their horror they discovered that a dreadful struggle must have taken place after burial. The shroud had been torn to shreds, the knees were drawn up to the chin, one arm was twisted under the head, and the features bore evidence of dreadful torture,—all unmistakable proofs that the girl had been buried alive.”

The celebrated English anatomist, Winslow, is said to have been twice nearly interred alive.

The Marquis D’Ourches, courageous in all other respects, had the greatest fear of premature burial. He recorded all the stories of burial alive; he believed in them, and even asserted that one of his uncles had awaked under ground.

“I have seen death in every aspect,” said a general to Dr. Josat, a gentleman rewarded for a book on mortuary houses, “and it has never had any terrors for me; but I own that I shudder at the notion of finding it at the bottom of a ditch in the cemetery.”

Incomplete death, or trance, as it is called, stands midway between death and life. During this state the 183senses cannot receive impressions; they are inactive, paralyzed, as it were. Yet the spark of life is still there and can, under proper care, be retained until the natural condition is restored. Yet almost always trance ends through ignorance and carelessness in complete death.

It is an established fact that there is no certain sign of death, none but the beginning of decomposition. To prevent premature burial the body must be retained until the commencement of decay is visible. Incineration protects from the horrors of burial alive. Even if a person in a trance should be introduced into a cremation furnace, the intense heat to which the body would be subjected would extinguish life immediately and painlessly.

It is alleged by some who are more impressed by prejudice than reason, that cremation is heathenish, brutish, pagan, atheistic,—in short, contrary to Christian practice.

This I deny! To be sure the heathen did practice it,—the ancient Asiatics (Oriental peoples in general), Romans, Greeks, Teutons, and Etruscans,—but at the same time they executed grave-burial; and yet I have never heard anybody decry the latter as abominable, disgusting, and heathenish. It must be kept in mind, that the first Christians were compelled by their heathen persecutors to adopt burial. They were forced to inter their dead secretly in the catacombs; they could not, even if they had chosen to, burn their dead, as the smoke from the cremation pyre would have betrayed them.

Why inhumation should have become so universal among the Christians, that it is looked upon as a necessary 184part of the religion, and all other means of disposal of the dead as heathenish, is not entirely plain. There is no condemnation of cremation in any of the dogmatic teachings of the apostles. The early Christians, whether in Jud?a, Greece, or Rome, were mainly of the poorer classes, who had to bury their dead. The mere fact that the richer and more educated classes, who were the most difficult to proselytize, universally practiced cremation would probably cause that custom to be associated with their other heathenish practices.

The Romans regarded the early Christians as a new sect of the Jews and called them “Nazarenes.” And, in fact, Christianity was born of Judaism; for Jesus, the founder, himself says (Matthew v. 17): “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” It is easy to understand how, being an offspring of Judaism, Christianity should adopt that method of disposing of the dead then prevalent among the Jews. At first, as Dean Stanley avers, the breach between the heathens and Christians was not an utter one. According to this great divine the early Christians inhumed in the same places as the heathens, and even painted and engraved upon the catacombs representations of the pagan gods. Later on the breach widened, however, and the Christians, as intimated above, were forced to bury their dead in seclusion.

It is alleged by some eminent writers on theological subjects that in the beginning Christians were even cremated.

Merivale, the historian, holds that letters inscribed on many of the Christian tombs in the catacombs imply that the early Christians sometimes burned their dead. 185Nevertheless, at the end of the fourth century Christians heard of burning with horror, and finally becoming inimical to the practice, although it was nowhere forbidden in the New Testament, made haste to abolish it in Europe.

THE BLACK AND WHITE JASPER URN.
(Barlow Collection.)

At the time of Pope and Dryden a classical reaction set in, and now again may be seen in every churchyard the broken shaft, the inverted torches, and innumerable marble urns which “in pride of place” rest upon the monuments in our cemeteries.

The phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” which occurs in almost every funeral sermon preached by modern clergymen, is but an allegory which was derived from the ancient custom of cineration. It is impossible to imagine ashes without the act of burning.

The inscription “peace to his ashes” which so often is found, in black or golden letters, on the tombstones 186of the present time, preaches incineration in our burial-grounds.

When the Romans embraced Christianity, it was transformed completely, and represented a strange commixture of rites partly of pagan and partly of Hebrew origin. The dalmatica of priests, utensils for celebrating mass, frankincense, etc., were derived from the Jews; whereas many other things, as for instance the worship of images, sprung from heathenism. The papal tiara has a remarkable resemblance to the historical conical cap of the Roman Pontifex Maximus; and to this day the Latin appellation of the Pope is identical with that of his pagan predecessor. The derivation of the crosier, the pastoral staff of the bishops, from the crook of the augurs is undeniable.

The mummy graves and representations upon the vessels of clay which were deposited in the sepulchres with the mummies testify that the cross (and indeed the upright cross) was one of the oldest and pre-Christian ornaments in the hands of the gods of ancient Egypt. It was not before the twelfth century that it was erroneously made a specific Christian symbol, ostensibly to demonstrate that although the cross was most contemptible, yet Christ himself had elevated it into dignity. Thus the sign of the cross became the symbol of Christianity. Such wooden crosses, history tells us, were also placed as a memorial upon the mounds of heathen graves.

If we would not want to imitate heathenism any more, we would have to quit eating with knives and forks, stop wearing boots and pantaloons, and do away with surcoats and rings. With the exception of steel pens and matches, but little would be left of our daily necessities 187of life that would not be an imitation of paganism.

The perpetual lamp burning at the ideal grave of the Saviour on the altars of Catholic churches is an imitation of the lamps which were lit on the memorial days of the deceased in the columbaria of ancient Rome, and by whose maintenance slaves, according to testamentary directions, attained the position of freedmen.

The decoration of our burial-grounds with flowers on the memorial days of the dead is copied from the analogous usage of the heathenish Romans.

The enemies of incineration say that every Christian is bound to practice interment because the Bible (I. Moses iii. 19) prescribes:—

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return into the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.”

The above has no value whatever as evidence for inhumation; since at the times when the books of Moses were written the inurned ashes were also deposited in the dust, i.e., the earth. The preservation of urns above ground is a much later custom. The above citation has no reference to the destruction of a body by fire or decay, but directs simply that the final remains of man, the dust, be placed in the earth. At least, this Bible passage might be urged against columbaria, but it has no bearing whatever on cremation.

If we should have to follow the Bible in all things, we would have to give up most of our modern inventions. For instance, the day of agricultural machines would be over, and we would have to tread out corn with oxen as of yore.

188It must be remembered that the early Christians practiced many things which Christians now do not practice; and they abominated some things which Christians now universally practice. For instance, the early Christians did not worship in temples or churches: they abominated temples as either pagan or Jewish; they hated art and condemned statuary and painting, especially in connection with religion; they destroyed many masterpieces of ancient art which were not religious, besides some that were; and they burned all books save the Bible. But these notions are no longer a part of Christianity, and were never part of its true faith.

When the Romans and Greeks knew better than we know, we exercise no compunction in adopting their practices. Our boys are taught from the classics; artists study the models of Greek, that is, pagan, art; much of our philosophy is heathen, and more of our jurisprudence. The ancients were wiser than we in practicing incineration. Why not, then, imitate them in this respect? Granted even that cremation were a “pagan custom,” not to adopt it when it has been conclusively demonstrated to be superior to burial, simply because it is of heathenish origin, shows nothing but miserable narrow-mindedness.

If cremation is a “pagan custom,” how about interment? Earth-burial to-day is practiced by more heathens than Christians. Or are not those whom we choose to style pagans in the majority? Would it not, therefore, be far more correct to denominate inhumation a pagan custom?

Dr. Neil declares:—

“It was once considered an eminently Christian virtue, entitling him who practiced it to the honors of 189canonization, to discard the use of soap and water; and this kind of medi?val piety prevails a good deal yet, notwithstanding the good old Roman practice of ablution. I do not find, however, that even Christian sanitarians object to the more frequent use of the bath because it was the pagan practice.”

Inhumation is claimed to be the Christian method of disposal of the dead par excellence because Christ was so disposed of.

“By the same sort of reasoning,” says the Medical Times and Gazette of London, England, “might it not be held that crucifixion has been so consecrated that it ought to be the mode of capital punishment in Christian countries?” Moreover, as the Rev. H. R. Haweis informs us, “Christ is no example to us, for according to Christian belief he rose from the dead and saw no corruption.”

It is exceedingly interesting to read what Christ himself said about burial.

Jesus, being a Jew, like the Hebrews in general had little regard for burial and the grave. Among the Jews contact with the dead was considered an act of defilement that had to be soon atoned for.

From the following passage (Matthew viii. 21, 22) it is plain that Christ was no friend of interment:—

“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury the dead.”

By the dead (i.e., spiritually dead) the Saviour, according to the best exegesis, meant the outside world, and he wanted to intimate that burial was fit work for them, but not for the Christian or disciple.

190See also St. Luke ix. 59.

Christ disparaged the importance of burial more than once. Indeed, it seems that he paid little attention to the disposal of the dead. We find him, during his ministrations on earth, healing the sick, turning water into wine to make glad the hearts of guests at a wedding feast, administering to the wants of the indigent, and cheering the down-trodden; but never at funeral ceremonies. It was he who declared:—

“God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

Dr. Le Moyne says:—

“So far as we have knowledge of New Testament history, we find no command given anywhere which was a ‘thus saith the Lord’ for any mode of burial. The Christian world was left to choose a mode of burial.”

When Jesus distinguished between cave and earth burial, he considered the latter the most despicable mode of burial, to which he compared the scribes and Pharisees; for when he reproved them by rebuke and disparagement, he said (Matthew xxii. 27):—

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which, indeed, appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”

The above shows in what estimation the founder of Christianity held inhumation.

It seems Christ himself gave the preference to cave-burial, for so he was disposed of. He was placed (vide Matthew xxvii. 57–60) in the rock-hewn tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which was open in front, and the door of which was closed with a stone.

Christ was not buried in the earth, but was placed in 191a sepulchre because he was a Jew. Had he been an Egyptian, he would have been embalmed after the fashion of a mummy. It was merely a matter of custom, and is not necessarily a precedent to be followed. It is evident that to be buried as Christ was, Christians would have to be deposited in rock-hewn tombs.

The assertion of certain religious fanatics, that cremation interferes with the Christian doctrine of the resurrection, proves untenable enough when one but remembers that both interment and incineration lead to the same result; namely, to the total destruction of the body. In the case of cremation this takes place within an hour; in earth burial the process may last for centuries until completed.

Professor Max Müller, the famous linguist, in his biographical essays, writes:—

“I often regret that the Jews buried and did not burn the dead, for in that case the Christian idea of the resurrection would have remained far more spiritual.”

Cannon Liddon believes that:—

“The resurrection of the body from its ashes is not a greater miracle than the resurrection of an unburnt body. Each must be purely miraculous. Faith in the resurrection would have been as clear and strong if the Jews had burnt their dead, as it is when, as a matter of fact, they buried them.”

Dr. Le Moyne says:—

“Some religionists object to cremation because it might possibly throw obstacles in God’s way of collecting the particles which once formed the body. They seem to forget that the dispersion of the atoms which compose the human body is just as wide and perfect by inhumation as by cremation.”

192Napoleon I., the Great, was a firm believer in cremation. On Dec. 14, 1816, five years before his death, he conversed freely with his surgeon, Barry O’Meara, on various topics.

Mr. O’Meara (“Napoleon in Exile; or, A Voice from St. Helena.” By Barry E. O’Meara. W. Gowans, New York, 1853, Vol. I. p. 277) says:—

“He afterwards spoke about funeral rites, and added, that when he died, he would wish that his body might be burned. ‘It is the best mode,’ said he, ‘as then the corpse does not produce any inconvenience; and as to the resurrection, that must be accomplished by a miracle, and it is easy to the Being who has it in his power to perform such a miracle as bringing the remains of the bodies together, to also form again the ashes of the dead.’”

During another talk with his medical adviser the ex-emperor said, “that he had ordered the slain burnt after the battle at Wagram.”

I clip the following from the Medical Herald, and commend it to the notice of opposers of cremation on the ground of religion:—

“The most prejudiced religionist cannot offer one valid objection, for if God is to call up the scattered remains of the dead from both land and sea on the day of final resurrection, the ashes shall be as easily resolved from the urn as from the débris of a building in which bodies may have been accidentally consumed by fire.”

I should like to see the Christian who believes that God will not take unto himself the soul of the brave fireman, who rushes courageously into a burning building to rescue his fellow-beings, and has the misfortune to fall and perish in the flames, while an indolent crowd 193is looking on below. Nay, nay! I believe that he will be twice as welcome in the kingdom of heaven.

At the opening of the Bolton cemetery in 1874, Bishop Fraser combated the anti-cremation movement, based upon the doctrine of the resurrection, with the sequent vigorous language:—

“The ancient Romans believed in immortality, and yet they believed in burning the bodies of their dead. Urn burial was certainly quite as decent as the practice of interment; and urns containing the ashes of the dead were more picturesque than coffins. Can any one suppose that it would be more impossible for God to raise up a body at the resurrection, if needs be, out of elementary particles which had been liberated by the burning, than it would be to raise up a body from dust, and from the elements of bodies which had passed into the structure of worms? The omnipotence of God is not limited, and he would raise the dead whether he had to raise our bodies out of churchyards or whether he had to call our remains, like the remains of some ancient Romans, out of an urn in which they were deposited 2000 years ago.”

It is a clerical duty to dispel superstitions. “Superstition,” well says Sprengel, “is the grave of science.” But it is not only the grave of science, but of all progress. The clergy should aid the latter and not place obstacles in its way.

Colonel Olcott says:—

“I am too firm a believer in the immortality of the soul, to view with patience the inconsistency of those who behave over the dead bodies of their friends as if the immortal part were being laid away in the ground. The more I might love my dead, the less willing I 194should be to leave the fair form that had once held an immortal spirit to turn into putrid carrion under ground, and breed a myriad of loathsome creatures out of its own rottenness. The attempt to substitute the scientific, poetical, and rational system of cremation has my earnest sympathy. I pray heaven that it may be possible to commit my body or that of any of my beloved to the pure flame, that in one short hour will purge them of dross as gold is refined in the furnace seven times heated.”

Even the organ of the Mormon hierarchy, The Deseret News, that believes in an absolutely literal interpretation of the Bible, reasons thus:—

“Some object to cremation on the ground of its inconsistency with the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. We do not see any force in that. No particle of matter is destroyed by fire; it is merely changed in form and reduced to primitive elements, or in their direction, for it is not clear that the action of fire extends so far as to resolve organized matter into its primal atoms. The same power that can call forth from the tomb a body that has decayed and gone to dust can quicken the dried ashes and draw from the elements the gases that have been dispersed by the flames of the crematory. How much of the actual particles that are seen now by the natural eye is necessary to the reformation of the human frame into a spiritual body with flesh and bones does not at present appear. But this is certain: the power that can resurrect the body from the grave or from the sea can bring it forth from any place or condition in the universe. Belief in the resurrection implies belief in God, and with him all things are possible.”

195Kate Field, who of all Americans probably is best acquainted with Mormon life and doctrines, points out that when the literal Mormon abjures literalness, it is high time for orthodox Christians to cast away the above-mentioned sacrilegious objection.

How, by the way, about those who fall overboard and are swallowed by the fishes, or those who are blown up by an explosion? Are they to be consigned to eternal damnation simply because they happened to meet with an accident? Are they not to be raised hereafter?

The absurdity and unreasonableness of this erroneous notion was tersely and happily expressed by the Earl of Shaftesbury during a conversation with an eminent (Sir T. Spencer Wells, I believe) promoter of the present cremation movement. He said:—

“What would in such a case become of the blessed martyrs?”

Many of them have been reduced to ashes, and still these are held sacred.

I would advise the person who holds the opinion that the resurrection cannot take place after cremation to seek quickly the nearest physician who makes a speciality of insanity. I wonder if such persons are conscious that they commit a sacrilege in doubting that God is omnipotent.

From a purely catholic point of view it is urged that incineration would destroy the relics of individuals who might afterward be canonized.

This is the most ridiculous objection of the whole lot! Are not the ashes of a saint as venerable as his bones? When such ashes are kept in a sealed urn, we may be certain of the genuineness of the relics. Today, 196there is no guarantee whatever of their genuineness—many cities claiming to possess the only real relics of this or that saint.

THE PORTLAND VASE.
(Originally a Cinerary Urn.)

There is no relation between cremation and religion. They are independent of each other. No passage in the Holy Bible prohibits incineration. The Christian religion does not oppose it, nor does the Jewish, as I learnt from an article in the Jewish Chronicle.

Some newspapers seem to think that cremation is contrary to the Jewish doctrines. Our brethren at Gibraltar and in the north of Africa bury their dead in quicklime. No one can deny the orthodoxy of the Jews on the shores of the Mediterranean, yet more than once have some of their number been disposed of in the manner related above; the method being carried out but lately at Mile-end. Among the Jews at London, instances of cremation are not unknown.

A Swiss clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Lange, declares 197that our Saviour never spoke a single word in condemnation of incineration. Dr. Altherr, Religious Journal for the People (No. 11, 1874), also entertains the same opinion.

An English Catholic pointed out that cremation would once more enable us to bury our dead in the churches, not only in the crypts of the sacred edifices, but also along the sides of the body of the churches.

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher had a word to say about cremation in a recent sermon of his. He thought that the universal Christian teaching of the resurrection of the body would prevent any general acceptance of it while that teaching prevails. Of course, a man of a “classical” education cannot reject incineration altogether, especially when he considers it from a hygienic point of view.

I have always been of the opinion that a great many clergymen fear to state their real views concerning cremation, lest their congregation might discharge them and engage the services of some other theologian; and I still have the same impression.

The so-called religious objection to cremation is wholly unsound, as even a great many anti-cremationists admit; it is therefore not surprising that “religious” opposition is fast weakening and waning wherever it has existed at all.

A late writer in the Church Review advises us to take care that incineration does not fall into infidel hands, and so become at last a symbol of irreligion.

The cemetery is regarded, in general, as a permanent resting-place of the dead, where they may sleep undisturbed. Man of the present time puts his beloved into 198the dirty, dark ground, and hands them over to the foul putrefaction; he places upon their graves large, heavy monuments, as if to keep them down and prevent them from finding their way back again into this sinful world. But he thinks not of the festering mass of corruption hid away under the tombstone; to him the departed is more like one asleep, like he or she was when death claimed the mortal body. He fondly imagines that his dear ones shall remain there forever, that their quiet rest shall be unbroken. From year to year, however, bodies are added to those already buried, the disgusting state of overcrowding which I described minutely, with all its evils, shows itself, and then one of two things happens: either the remains of those buried before are ruthlessly dug up by the sexton’s spade and thrown into the mud whenever a new grave is made, or all of the bodies are exhumed and taken away; the soil is parcelled, and the new generation takes possession of the “city of the dead.”

In some cemeteries corpses are allowed to remain in a grave only a stipulated time; in English burial-grounds, where a freehold right is not secured, the remains may rest undisturbed but seven, in France five, years.

The sentiment of the public is expressed in the sequent extract from a lecture by the Rev. Brooke Lambert:—

“There is no subject on which people feel more deeply than the disturbance of the remains of their ancestors, and even the displacement of effete memorials of them. I find that the prevailing feeling is that the dead ought never to be removed, nor the position of their monuments changed even by a hair’s breadth. Now whilst 199our present system of burial remains, such changes in their places of interment must occur.”

When Mr. Walker, the surgeon, inspected the Portugal Street Cemetery at London, England, on April 27, 1839, he discovered that two graves had been opened, the bones of the remains exposed to view; and a lot of coffin-wood, some quite fresh, intended (as he was informed) for firewood.

A gentleman who visited the same burial-ground some time before (vide Times, June 25, 1838) wrote: “I was shocked to see two men employed in carrying baskets of human bones to the back of the ground through a small gate. I have 12 of my nearest and dearest relatives consigned to the grave in that ground, and I felt that I might perhaps at that moment be viewing, in the basket of skulls which passed before me, those of my own family thus brutally exhumed.”

A correspondent to the Weekly Despatch, of September 30, 1838, thus describes St. Giles’ Churchyard, where he had just been:—

“What a horrid place! It is full of coffins up to the surface. Coffins are broken up before they are decayed; and bodies removed to the bone-house before they are sufficiently decayed to make their removal decent!... The bone-house is a large, round pit. Into this had been shot from a wheelbarrow the but partly decayed inmates of the smashed coffins. On the north side was a man digging a grave. He was quite drunk. So, indeed, were all the grave-diggers we saw.”

Walker saw the tin plates removed from the coffins broken up, and witnessed how many wagon-loads of bones were taken to the charnel-houses.

200Lord Ronald Gower writes in Vanity Fair:—

“The other day I came across a somewhat rare little brochure,—an account of the violation of the royal sepulchres of St. Denis, during the first French Revolution. The work of destruction and sacrilege commenced early in October, 1793, and lasted all the month. The first corpse found was that of Henry IV, the once beloved Henri de Navarre. Some curiosity, if not affection, still seems to have lingered even among those patriots who have constituted themselves body-snatchers, and the bearnais was propped up against the church wall in his shroud, and became quite an attraction for the crowd. One of the republican guards even condescended to cut off the king’s gray, upturned moustache, and place it on his lip; another removed the beard, which he declared he would keep as a relic. After these marks of attention were exhausted, the body was thrown into a huge pit filled with quicklime, into which successively followed those of its ancestors and descendants.

“On the next day the corpses of Henry IV’s wife, Maria de Medicis, that of his son, Louis XIII, and that of his grandson, Louis XIV, were added to this. The body of the sun-king (as Louis XIV’s courtiers loved to call him) was as ‘black as ink.’ What a contrast to that majestic, bewigged head, as we see it on the canvas of Le Brun and Rigault, must not that poor blackened skull have been! The body of the Grand Monarch’s wife and that of his son, the Dauphin (father of Louis XV) followed; all these, and especially the latter, were in a state of shocking decay.

“The following day poor harmless Marie Leczinska’s body was torn from its resting-place, as also were those 201of the ‘Grand Dauphin,’ the Duke of Burgundy and his wife, and several other princes and princesses of the same race, including three daughters of Louis XV. All these were in a state of terrible decomposition, and in spite of the use of gunpowder and vinegar, the stench was so great that many of the workmen were seized with fever, and others had to continue the grewsome work. By a strange chance, on the very morning that Marie Antoinette’s sufferings came to an end on the Place de la Revolution, the body of another unfortunate queen saw the light of day,—it was on the 16th of October that the body of our Queen Henrietta Maria, who had died in 1669, was taken from its coffin and added to the ghastly heap in the ‘Ditch of the Valois,’ as the pit into which these royal remains were hurled was called; that of her daughter the once ‘Belle Henriette’ came next, and then in quick succession the bodies of Philippe D’Orleans; that of his son, the notorious regent; of his daughter, the no less notorious Duchesse de Berri; of her husband; and half a dozen infants of the same family. On the same day a coffin was cautiously opened. This was found at the entrance of the royal vault (the customary position for that containing the latest deceased king), and contained the remains of Louis ‘le bien aimé.’ No wonder that the bod............