(Vol. ii., pp. 243. 281.)
To the information which has recently been furnished in your pages
respecting the remains of James II., it may be not uninteresting to add the
inscription which is on his monument in the church of St. Germain-en-Laye,
and which I copied, on occasion of my last visit to France.
The body of the king, or a considerable portion of it, which had remained
unburied, was, I believe, interred at St. Germain soon after the
termination of the war in 1814; but it being necessary to rebuild the
church, the remains were exhumed and re-interred in 1824. Vicissitudes as
strange in death as in life seem to have attended this unhappy king.
The following is the inscription _now_ on his monument in the parish church
of St. Germain:
"REGIO CINERI PIETAS REGIA.
"Ferale quisquis hoc monumentum suspicis
Rerum humanarum vices meditare
Magnus in prosperis in adversis major
Jacobus 2. Anglorum Rex.
Insignes ærumnas dolendaque nimium fata
Pio placidoque obitu exsolvit
in hac urbe
Die 16. Septemb. anni 1701.
Et nobiliores quædam corporis ejus partes
Hic reconditæ asservantur."
* * * * *
Qui prius augustâ gestabat fronte coronam
Exiguâ nunc pulvereus requiescit in urnâ
Quid solium--quid et alta juvant! terit omnia lethum,
Verum laus fidei ac morum haud peritura manebit
Tu quoque summe Deus regem quem regius hospes
Infaustum excepit tecum regnare jubebis."
But a different inscription formerly was placed over the king's remains in
this church, which has now disappeared; at all events, I could not discover
it; and I suppose that the foregoing was preferred and substituted for
that, a copy of which I subjoin:
"D.O.M. Jussu Georgii IV. Magnæ Britanniæ &c., Regis, et curante Equite
exc. Carolo Stuart Regis Britanniæ Legato, cæteris antea rite peractis
et quo decet honore in stirpem Regiam hic nuper effossæ reconditæ sunt
Reliquiæ Jacobi II., qui in secundo civitatis gradu clarus triumphis in
primo infelicior, post varios fortunæ casus in spem melioris vitæ et
beatæ resurrectionis hic quievit in Domino, anno MDCCI, v. idus
Septemb., MDCCCXXIV."