[Illustration:
GRÉTRY’S TOMB AT THE HERMITAGE.
]
A few days later, Sept. 26, 1813, the author of _Richard Cœur de Lion_
passed away. The funeral ceremony took place in Paris, with great
solemnity. The pall-bearers were Méhul, Berton, Marsallier and Bouilly.
Grétry’s heart has been the object of much discussion, and even a
tedious law suit. The composer had often expressed in his lifetime the
desire that his heart should be offered to his native city, Liège. M.
Flamand, one of Grétry’s nephews, having obtained from the prefect of
police at Paris the authorization to have the body exhumed in order to
send the heart to Liège, wrote to the mayor of that city and offered him
this precious token of the illustrious composer’s ardent love for his
native country. The mayor responded in such terms as to cause M. Flamand
to reconsider his proposition, and the heart was kept at the Hermitage.
In 1821 the city of Liège reclaimed the bequest which had been made it,
but this time M. Flamand absolutely refused to deliver it up. A lawsuit
followed which was decided by the court substantially as follows: that
since the extraction of Grétry’s heart had been demanded by the family
and granted by public authority solely for the purpose of paying homage
to the city of Liege, which had prepared a monument to receive it,
therefore it should be withdrawn from the garden of the Hermitage, and
sent to the commissioners of the city of Liège. This decree was not
carried out. The prefect of the Seine and the minister of the interior
objected. The question was then carried before the council of state, and
in 1828, fifteen years after Grétry’s death, the precious leaden box
containing the heart of the illustrious composer was carried to Liège.
[Illustration: