to emit sparks. His head was surmounted with a square, red cap, in form of a crown. He had in his hand a little cane, with a top like a crow's beak."
It was a moment of extraordinary triumph for the returned exile. The whole theatre rose to receive him amidst long-continued applause; between the pieces his bust was crowned with laurel on the stage by the entire company; verses were recited in his honour; he was carried to his coach on the shoulders of his admirers, and attended to his hotel by an immense concourse. Turning on the steps, he said, "You wish, then, to stifle me with roses!"—and entered the house, which he did not quit again. He bore his last grievous illness with fortitude, and, on the 30th May 1778, met death with equanimity. But he was not held to have duly made the amende honorable to the Church, and the clergy of Paris denied him sepulture. His body, embalmed, was taken by his nephew, the Abbé Mignot, to the Abbey of Scellières in Champagne, and there interred with the rites of the Church. Next day a mandate arrived from the bishop of the diocese to forbid the burial, but the prohibition was then ineffectual.
Thirteen years afterwards the Revolutionists, claiming in him a champion of their cause, took up his body and transported it to the Pantheon, to lie among those whom they judged worthy of honour. But his companions there were men whose doctrines and practice would, in life, have revolted him. Beside him was laid the wretch Marat, whom he would have loathed and denounced. The violent overturning of the old monarchy, the proscriptions, the massacres, the guillotine—these would have received no countenance from him,
