FRANCE.

TOMB OF LOUIS XII.

IN THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.

The struggling light through the windows high

Falls o'er the pillared tomb,

And gilds the sculptured forms that lie
Enshrined with sacred gloom.

THE abbey church of St. Denis, the mausoleum of the kings of France, is one of the noblest specimens of the early pointed style remaining in that kingdom. Although revolution laid her ruthless hand upon its graceful forms, and offered unchristian violence to its stately tombs; a protecting providence appears to have guarded both from unmerited destruction. History must have watched with jealous care the fortunes of this venerable pile, for it had long been the asylum of her chiefest witnesses; and she must have trembled for the light of truth, during the exile of the royal monuments from the hallowed home which had been originally assigned them.

At whatever period this majestic basilic may have been founded, it was chosen to be the resting-place of royalty at an early date. It was towards the close of the third century, that Dionysius, or St. Denis, fell by the hands of a public executioner, for having preached the gospel in the land of Gaul; his body being thrown into the Seine, was recovered by the pious Lady Catulla, who interred it in her garden, and over it raised a cell, or oratory. This little building being enlarged by St. Geneviève, in the sixth century, became subsequently one of the most celebrated abbeys for Benedictine monks in all Europe. Attracted by the fame of the martyr's shrine, St. Denis was made the city of the royal dead. "The first of the kings of France who wished to repose there for ever was Dagobert. A part of the race of Pepin was, for a long time, buried there; king Pepin himself slept his last sleep in these vaults, by the side of queen Bertha, his wife, and not far from Louis and Carloman, the sons of Louis the Stammerer. Near

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these you will find statues in stone of Clovis II., and Charles Martel. There are also cenotaphs to Philip the Hardy, and his terrible son Philip the Fair, the conqueror of the Normans, who had more than once pushed their insolent ravages to the abbey of St. Denis." *

The long list of illustrious dead who once reposed within this solemn structure, includes three separate royal races; and the crypt is adorned also with cenotaphs to the memories of those members of each, who were from choice or from accident entombed elsewhere. A marble sarcophagus, in which Charlemagne was interred at Aix-la-Chapelle, together with his statue in marble, have been removed hither, and placed near the effigies of Louis I., Charles II., Louis II., Charles III. and IV. Cenotaphs perpetuate the fame of Pepin the Short, Eudes, count of Paris, and some others of that line. These are succeeded in their sepulchral, as they were originally in their sovereign order, by the third dynasty, including Hugh Capet, Robert the Pious, and his queen, Constance of Arles; Constance of Castille, queen of Louis VII.; then Louis VI., Philip Augustus, and Louis VII. Nor do these alone assist the student of history in the crypt of St. Denis; he may trace the records of Europe still onward, in the tombs of queen Blanche, Philip the Hardy, Charles, king of Sicily, brother to St. Louis; Philip the Fair, Louis X., Philip the Tall, Jane of Navarre, John the Good, Charles VI., Isabel of Bavaria, &c. Within the central royal vault are buried the later kings of the elder Bourbon line, amongst whose ashes are deposited the remains of the unfortunate Maria Antoinette.

Every niche or re-entrant angle of the nave is occupied by stately sepulchral designs, some aspiring to the character of architectural works, from the union of magnitude with the delicate labours of the sculptor's chisel. Of this class are the mausoleums of Henry II., Francis I., and Louis XII. No sepulchral structure of the sixteenth century exceeds in magnificence the tomb of the gallant Francis; it was designed by Philip Delorme, and is that great artist's master-piece. On the opposite side of the nave is the equally splendid monument of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany. The design, which is twelve feet in length, ten in breadth, and fourteen high, consists of a pedestal, enriched with bas-reliefs, representing Louis crossing the Alps, his triumphant entry into Milan and Genoa, and the memorable battle of Agnadel. In vain does any monumental effigy endeavour to do justice to his better qualities; these consisted in alleviating the weight of taxes that pressed down his subjects, in protecting the industrious labourer from the rapacious violence of the soldier, and punishing with death those gendarmes who laid the peasantry under tyrannical contributions: if, therefore, he was neither the greatest hero, nor the most profound politician, he acquired the more estimable glory of being a good king. His memory is cherished by posterity, and history styles him "Father of his country."

From the pedestal on which these military achievements are expressed, rises a rich and beautiful arcade, ornamented with arabesques of the most delicate execution. Within the cell, and beneath the canopy, is a sarcophagus, on which are laid recumbent figures of the monarch and his queen, in their robes of royalty. Statues of the twelve apostles

⚫ Jules Janin,

are seated in the arches that open towards the cenotaph, and on the entablature above are engraven the style and title of the illustrious dead, to whose memories this costly sepulchre is raised. On the summit the two principal figures are repeated, in the attitude of prayer, wearing flowing robes, and with an altar-table before them.

The style of these gorgeous tombs, although little in character with the lofty pointed manner of the abbey, is chaste, classical, and correct as integral works. Philosophy may smile at the vanity of such recompense to the shades of royalty, but art congratulates that country whose civilization has attained to such a conspicuous degree of perfection. Had Paolo Poncio never executed another work, he would by this alone have secured a lasting recollection of his genius.

In conformity with a sacrilegious decree of the Convention, dated the 16th of October, 1793, the remains of the Capets and the Bourbons were disinterred, and thrown into two deep trenches without the church, in front of the northern porch. Their leaden coffins were melted on the spot, to be moulded into bullets, and the decree went so far as to order the lead to be stripped from the abbey-roof for the same purpose. Happily for the arts and the name of France, the latter part of this sentence was never carried into effect. Exclusive of the ancient tombs that adorned the abbey, no sacred depository was more rich in those relics which superstition but too often consecrates. Here was the oriflamme,* or sacred banner of the nation, only exhibited, like the standard of Mahomet, upon extraordinary occasions-a nail of the true cross-the hair of the Virgin-the head of St. Denis the martyr, which he was supposed to have carried to the abbey with his own hands-and the clock of St. Louis:-besides crowns, and sceptres, and swords, and spears, worn by the bravest, and most just, and most pious of Frank monarchs in the olden times. All these were dissipated by the same wild storm that scattered the dust of their royal owners. To the zeal, almost the piety, of Mons. Le Noir, the preservation of the ancient monuments of the crypt is wholly due. Actuated by a laudable feeling for such interesting national records, this excellent man rescued them from the hands of the revolutionists, who had plundered the abbey of its treasures, and, placing them in an apartment at the convent des petits Augustines, in Paris, they there formed the principal attraction of a museum since called l'Ecole Royale des Beaux Arts, until their restoration to their sacred homes at St. Denis.

For several years the spoliated sepulchres shared the fate of the abbey, where the ashes of so many kings had reposed for centuries. The lofty walls and the stately columns, and the "long-drawn aisles," remained to prove that princes were the best patrons of art, although the reminiscence had no better influence on "the people's" minds, than

Or auriflamme-the old royal standard of France, originally the church-banner of the abbey of St. Denis, which was presented by the Abbot to the Lord Protector of the convent, (formerly the counts of Vexin and Pontoise,) whenever it was necessary to take up arms for the preservation of its rights and possessions. It was a piece of red taffeta, fixed on a golden spear, in the form of a banner, and cut into three points, each of which was adorned with a tassel of green silk. When Philip I. united Vexin to the possessions of the crown, it devolved on him to bear the banner, as Protector of the Abbey. From that period it was carried with the armies, and eventually became the great national standard of the realm. It has not, however, been borne to the field of battle since the time of Charles VII.-Vide Lanzelot's Memoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions.

to cause the abbey to be converted into a market-hall. It was reserved for Napoleon to make some atonement for this act of sacrilege, to redeem, in some degree, the national character, and to blot out, as far as practicable, the stain which a popular eruption had inflicted upon the reputation of France for refinement in arts and literature. An imperial decree of the 20th of February, 1806, restored to the abbey that distinction of which it had been deprived-of being the mausoleum of royalty; Napoleon caused whatever relics were recoverable to be surrendered to the abbey, the torn cerements to be reseamed, the broken tombs to be repaired; and he selected, as the burial-place of his own family, the central vault within the royal crypt. The restoration of the abbey and of the tombs was continued, after the deposition of Napoleon, by the Bourbons, who collected the bones of their illustrious predecessors, and replaced them in the graves from whence they had been exhumed. And here, at last, the ashes of Louis XVI., and of his beautiful but luckless queen, are surrounded in death by that pomp of royalty which was denied them when living. An obscure vault contains the coffin of the last Condé, on which the rays of an ever-burning lamp fall, only to kindle melancholy reflections. He was father of the ill-fated D'Enghien, and closed his own miserable life by an act of suicide.

Of the Napoleon dynasty, one only was honoured with burial in these royal sepulchres; this solitary star of the imperial galaxy was the son of Louis Buonaparte and his queen Hortense, and had been once adopted as successor to the diadem of his uncle. His ashes lie there alone; and, with the exception of the noble valves of bronze, intended for the emperor's tomb, all traces of the Napoleon family have been invidiously obliterated by the kings of the restored line.

Several circumstances which marked the desecration of the tombs by the revolutionary mob, tend to illustrate the force of fanaticism, the uncontrollable character of delusion, whether political or religious, and the total abandonment of feeling or sentiment to which it leads. When the graves were burst open, the body of Henri Quatre, once the idol of the French people, was found almost entire, a flowing beard dependent from his chin;-in the fierce and ruthless spirit of the hour, a soldier cut this patriarchal emblem from the pallid face, and placed it as a moustache upon his own. Nor did any recollection of him, (Louis XII.,) whom France called the Father of his Country, interpose to save his bones from the common indignity; nor did the glorious reputation of Turenne secure his ghastly remains from insult. Finding that the brave soldier's corpse had been preserved from early injury by means of an antiseptic process, and that the resemblance of his well-known portrait to the original might yet be traced, they placed the body in a glass-case, and made it the sport of idle curiosity. To obliterate more effectually all memorials of this city of the royal dead, it was resolved to exchange its venerated name of Saint Denis for that of La Franciade; but the petty effort was defeated by Napoleon, who restored the abbey to its fair proportions, the tombs to their solemn grandeur of exterior; and who raised beneath the vaulted aisles three expiatory altars to the injured shades of so many lines of kings-the Merovingian, Carlovingian, and Capetian.