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Before the high altar stood the catafalque; in front of it, the crown, scepter, orb, and other emblems of royalty; and at its summit, the coffin containing the body of the King. Around this structure were ranged lines of soldiers and pages in picturesque uniforms and bearing torches.
An incident of the funeral was the decoration of the catafalque with a silver cross: Meyerbeer was a Jew, and the inconsistency was not noticed till there was barely time to tear away the Christian emblem before the body of the Israelite composer was laid in its place.
Meanwhile, the first days after the catastrophe passed in that sad, unmarked succession of objectless hours by which time moves in a house where such a death has taken place. It is not the custom among the upper classes of Italians to attend the funerals of relations and friends. The servants are sent, in deep mourning, to kneel before the catafalque in church during the first requiem mass.
They kept Chamberlan in their pay, and he supplied them by stealth with an old death's-head. A seamster cut out for them two long black robes with hoods attached, like monks' habits. The Falaise coach brought them a large parcel in a wrapper. Then they set about the work, the one interested in executing it, the other afraid to believe in it. The museum was spread out like a catafalque.
Towards seven o'clock in the evening, when the declining day adds so deep a melancholy to the silence of a church, four porters and two working carpenters carried the corpse into the chapel where it was to be interred, and, lifting it off the catafalque, where it lay in state, put it in the coffin which was to be its last abode; but it was found that the coffin was too short, and the body could not be got in till the legs were bent and thrust in with violent blows; then the carpenters put on the lid, and while one of them sat on the top to force the knees to bend, the others hammered in the nails: amid those Shakespearian pleasantries that sound as the last orison in the ear of the mighty; then, says Tommaso Tommasi, he was placed on the right of the great altar of St.
The words seemed to erect a catafalque before their eyes, but, facing the nodding blackness with a calm in which Jack detected the glint of steel, Valerie answered: "I am not aware that they have been playing pranks." For all the way to the theater Imogen again assumed the mask, talking exclusively to Mary. She talked of these friends of her mother's, of Sir Basil, Mr. and Mrs.
He was a merry and sprightly man; danced in a lively manner, in a frenzy; and executed such figures during the dances that all those present just melted from laughter. Following the singers came the two-horsed catafalque, that Tamara had hired; black, with white plumes, and seven torch-bearers along with it.
The funeral procession passed through the ranks of soldiers, who filled the street. Several officers came to meet it, and Captain Ortis, approaching close to the Eletto, said: "The bishop refuses the catafalque and the solemn requiem you requested. Your mother died in sin, without the sacrament. He will grant as many masses for the repose of her soul as you desire, but such high honors...."
At noon all the civil and military authorities assembled at the Invalides; and the body was transferred from the dome into the church, and placed on a catafalque in the shape of a great Egyptian pyramid, raised on an elevated platform, and approached through four large arches, the posts of which were entwined with garlands of laurels interlaced with cypress.
A catafalque contained his coffin, and slowly his betrothed came, with a trembling hand, to throw holy water on the cloth which covered the bier. And a voice said within him: "You are dead, since Micheline is about to marry another." He made an effort to banish this importunate idea. He could not succeed. Thoughts flew through his brain with fearful rapidity.
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