THE FOES AT REST
To-day, the two Royal Foes sleep in the two famous mausoleums of the
Continent, Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg, Napoleon in Paris. Beneath
the dome of "Les Invalides" is the sarcophagus of Bonaparte. On the
mosaic pavement the names of his battles are inscribed within a wreath
of laurel. Sixty flags that he captured adorn the tomb decorated with
reliefs and lighted by a glow which falls, most golden, about the coffin
of the conqueror.
With him sleep his faithful Duroc and the Bertrand who brought his
message to Queen Louisa and so offended the old Countess with his bad
manners.
The words above the entrance are Napoleon's own:
"I desire that my ashes repose on the banks of the Seine in the midst of
the French people I loved so well."
On each side is a figure of Atlas, one bearing a globe, the other, a
sceptre and crown.
All is of earthly glory and victory.
Queen Louisa sleeps in a spot where she once loved to walk with her
husband and children. A quiet avenue of pine trees leads to a grove of
black firs, cypresses and Babylonian willows, bordered with white roses,
lilies, Hortensia, the favourite flowers of the Queen, and at the end
stands the mausoleum which Frederick William erected to her memory.
A flight of steps leads through the iron door to the interior, where, in
a violet light, sleeps the Queen, the King, and the Emperor William and
the granddaughter of the Duchess of Weimar.
The sculptor, Rauch, to whom the Queen once was very kind, carved a
statue of her so beautiful that it is almost impossible to gaze on its
loveliness without weeping.
At her feet is buried the heart of the Crown Prince, King Frederick
William IV of Prussia, in a case of silver.
As long as her husband lived he brought wreaths to the tomb. Before
Charlotte went to be Empress of Russia, she wept there. The first
Kaiser, to the end of his long life, prayed there, and little
Alexandrina, who died only a year or two ago, and saw her parent's
prayer answered, never forgot the wreath for her mother's birthday.
Above the entrance appear two Greek letters.
"I am Alpha and Omega," they say, "the beginning and the ending, saith
the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."
The golden light which falls on Napoleon tells of the glory of the world
and things of victory.
Queen Louisa's kingdom was not, as she said, of this world; but still
she lives, the "Queen of Every Heart" in the German Empire, "Her name,"
writes a German author, "a watchword with the patriot."
Napoleon was the Emperor of the French, the conqueror of Europe; Queen
Louisa, the heroine of the German Struggle for Liberty.
THE END