the resting-places of the kings of the House of
Valois, who were buried in the several chapels
of the abbey church, had their share of the
general desecration. The first tomb opened
was that of Charles the Fifth, the wisest and
best of his race. Here, of the king himself,
were found nothing but mouldering bones; but
the emblems of his state had survived him
undimmed in splendour—his enamelled gold
crown, his silver hand-of-justice, and a golden
sceptre five feet long, surmounted by acanthus-
leaves of silver gilt, shining as bright as when
first it was given to the dead monarch's grasp.
In the coffin of Jeanne de Bourbon, his wife,
many regal relics greeted the eye: part of her
crown, a ring of gold, fragments of bracelets
and small golden chains, a distaff of gilt wood,
almost rotten, and long pointed shoes, half
destroyed, embroidered in gold and silver. In
the coffin of Charles the Seventh, a singular
mode of embalming became apparent, the king's
body being sprinkled all over with quicksilver,
which had kept all its fluidity. This custom
was also noticed in relation to other embalmed
bodies of an earlier period. The bones of Louis
the Eighth, surnamed the Lion, the father of St.
Louis, who died on the 8th of November, 1226,
at the age of forty, were nearly reduced to dust.
On the stone which enclosed his coffin was
sculptured a cross in low relief, and within was
found only a decayed wooden sceptre and a
diadem, or band of stuff of cloth-of-gold, with a
species of satin cap, tolerably well preserved.
He had been wrapped in a shroud of cloth-of-
gold, beneath which was a dress of thick
leather; and as his body was the only one
thus encased, it is probable this mode of
preservation was had recourse to that no unpleasant
odour might issue from it in bringing his
remains to St. Denis from Montpensier, in
Auvergne, where he died, on his return from
the war against the Albigenses. The coffin of
St. Louis was shorter and narrower than
most of the rest, and none of his mortal part
was found within, his bones having been taken
out when he was canonised. In the course of
their search elsewhere, no part of the abbey
church being left unexamined, the ruthless
explorers came upon the tomb of Philippe le Bel,
who died in 1314. His coffin was of stone
lined with lead, and covered by a broad slab,
traversed with thick iron bars. The skeleton
was entire, and to one finger-bone still clung a
gold ring: by his side was a copper-gilt sceptre
five feet long, terminated by a tuft of foliage, on
which rested a bird of the same metal.

Next came the demolition of the tomb of King
Dagobert, which had been in the abbey church,
which he founded, eleven hundred and fifty-five
years. It was upwards of six feet long, and the
stone had been hollowed to receive the head,
which was separated from the body, though,
unlike the last of the kings of France, he had not
closed his life decapitated. Within the tomb
was found a coffer about two feet in length,
lined throughout with lead, and containing the
bones of "le bon Roi," and those of his wife,
Nantilde. A silken envelope wrapped the
remains of each, which were kept distinct by a
dividing board. On one side of the colfer was a
leaden tablet with this inscription: "Hic jacet
corpus Dagoberti," and on the other a similar
tablet bearing the words, " Hic jacet corpus
Nantildis." The queen's skull could not be
discovered, and it is probable it remained in the
place of its first interment, Saint Louis having
removed the bones of Dagobert and his wife to
the new tomb which he provided for them. The
exhumation of King John, the prisoner of
Poitiers, was the last act of the spoliators
of 1793.

It was all over now with Saint Denis, either
as a place of sepulture or a place of worship; in
its roofless condition it was used as a market-
house, nor did it resume its ecclesiastical
character for twelve years. Napoleon then took
an interest in its restoration, intending to make
the sepulchral vaults of the Carlovingian line—
for he recognised only the imperial house of
Charlemagne—the mausoleum of the Bonaparte
family. How that design was frustrated, every
one knows. When the Bourbons came back,
for the second time, in 1815, and had time to
look about them—a privilege scarcely allowed
them on their first return—Louis the Eighteenth
began in earnest to restore the tombs of his
ancestors and redecorate the time-honoured
abbey church, which, after death, had been their
asylum. He was the last Bourbon king buried
here, and at his funeral all the old customs
attendant on royal funerals were revived; but with
these upholsterers' details the reader need not
be troubled.

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," " Copperfleld," &c.
Now publishing, PART VII., price Is., of
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BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY TARTS.
With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

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