Note 295 — Chapter X

While this incredible scene was being enacted in an apartment of the palace, another of a far more terrible nature was to be witnessed in the streets of Paris; but before we describe this, we must explain all that had passed since the murder of the Maréchal d'Ancre. As we have already stated, the body was pillaged where it lay; and then, as no further booty could be anticipated, it was carried into a small closet attached to the common guard-room, where it remained until nightfall, when a coarse sheet, for which fifty sous were given, was folded about it, and it was buried without any religious ceremony under the organ of the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois near the Louvre. A priest who attempted to chant a funeral-hymn as it was laid in the earth was compelled to desist, in order that the place of burial might not be known; and the flags which had been raised were so carefully replaced that it was only by secret information that the spot could possibly have been discovered. This information was however given; and early in the morning the pavement was torn up, and a rope fastened round the neck of the corpse, which was then dragged through the streets by the infuriated mob; and the desecrated remains of the recently powerful favourite were hung by the feet to a gibbet, dismembered in the most brutal manner, and finally burned.[295]