In the tomb below the church of Les Invalides, Emperor Napoleon's coffin was placed in the stone tomb that had been prepared before everyone witnessed it.
Because the tomb was not large, not many people could enter. Only the royal family, senior officials, and marshals, including Aigron, Talleyrand, and Marshal Soult, leaned against the tomb at the closest distance.
Under Aigron's gaze, the stone coffin boards slowly closed, and the dull roar sounded like the emperor bidding farewell to everyone in the dark.
Now, the grand burial is finally over, but the work of protecting the tomb has just begun.
Theoretically speaking, since the emperor was buried here, this is the spiritual totem of the empire. Whether it is Aigron himself or his descendants, they will send people to guard this place and will never let the late emperor's mausoleum be disturbed in the slightest.
But... what if the empire falls?
Then maybe this place will suffer a disaster.
Of course Aiglon still remembers the tragedy that happened at the Saint-Denis Cathedral.
The church is located in the northern suburbs far away from Little Paris, and has been the location of the tombs of French royal families since ancient times. Since the sixth century, almost all kings have been buried here.
According to ancient tradition, whenever a king needs to be buried here, people will make a life-size stone statue out of marble according to what he looked like when he died, and then choose a location in the Saint-Denis Cathedral to place his coffin. During the funeral
After the ceremony, the stone statue of the late king will be placed flat on the coffin for the descendants of the royal family to pay their respects.
After thousands of years of accumulation, there are more than 70 lying statues and coffins of the deceased in the church, which has also become a witness to the thousand-year history of French kingship.
Time flies, and thousands of years of history pass by quickly, but kings on the throne come and go, and the French monarchy seems to be as stable as Mount Tai and unbreakable.
However, in 1789, the situation suddenly changed. The Great Revolution swept across France, the royal system also crumbled, and a new era quietly arrived.
In 1793, a series of events pushed the Revolution to its most radical point. This was also the year when the Revolution gradually reached its climax of terror and madness. It was on January 21 of this year that Louis XVI was sent to prison.
On the guillotine.
Although the king has been executed, people's hatred for the monarchy accumulated over thousands of years has not been completely vented.
The revolutionary masses who had already become energetic remembered the Saint Denis Cathedral where all the previous kings were buried. Several groups of people rushed into the cathedral. First they destroyed all the tombs, sculptures and church decorations, and then some people broke open the cathedral.
The coffins of the late kings.
The most tragic of these was Henry IV. Because his body was well preserved in a lead coffin, it was erected and leaned against a pillar for two days. Curious Parisians flocked to "view" the king's remains.
, some people even damaged it with stones or sticks.
In the end, the bodies of these kings who once dominated the entire country were carried out of the church and thrown into the deep pits newly dug in the nearby Wallowa Public Cemetery, and entered into mass graves like ordinary people.
It was not until 1815 that the Bourbon dynasty was restored, and the heartbroken King Louis XVIII finally issued an edict to rebury his ancestors. The remains of the kings were dug out of the deep pits and placed in Saint Denis.
In the cathedral, however, because these skeletons were randomly piled together in mass graves, no one could tell who was who in these piles of skeletons (of course, from a materialistic point of view, it seems that
There really was no clear meaning anymore), so the remains were put back into the coffin and reburied in a daze.
Louis XVIII also specially moved the remains of his brother Louis XVI and his wife from the cemetery to here. When he died in 1824, his successor, his brother King Charles X, was buried here according to tradition.
.
However, because King Charles X has been driven away by Aigron, he will definitely not have such an honor in the future.
Things have turned around, and now it's Aigron's turn to worry about the safety of his own mausoleum.
If there really is a day when Guo Zuo is overthrown, will his remains be pulled out of the coffin by the angry people and displayed to the public?
He really wasn't sure and said "impossible".
After all, the French people have demonstrated what they can accomplish on their own.
A sense of crisis suddenly surged into his heart, and his eyes began to wander.
And when his eyes fell on Prince Talleyrand, who was still in the ancient well, he suddenly felt relieved.
Would Talleyrand care about how others treated him after his death? I'm afraid even God couldn't make him repent. For him, as long as he was happy all his life, he didn't care about the afterlife.
And the same is true for me. I have already ascended to the throne, possessed supreme power, and enjoyed all kinds of pleasures in the world. So even if I encounter such a tragic situation in the future, what's the big deal?
So let’s leave this kind of problem to our children and grandchildren to worry about. If they don’t have the ability to keep the throne, then what’s the point of worrying about the dead bones in the grave?
After feeling relieved, Aigron breathed a sigh of relief, then bowed slightly to Emperor Napoleon's coffin, then turned around and left the tomb.
After he walked out, others followed him, and Teresa took Agron's arm and walked out with him.
Just now in the tomb, she felt a little depressed in the cool breeze, and she seemed to have noticed Aigron's worry.
"Your Highness, the matter is finally done. You got your wish and buried the late emperor grandly. Why do you suddenly look depressed?" So she asked her husband softly at a volume that only two people could hear.
"Everything we got in one year took a hundred years to guard carefully." Aigron sighed softly, "Now we are like misers who finally got rich, and we cautiously keep the gold."
Huddle within your own treasure house, fearing that others will get your hands on it!"
Others may have been confused after hearing Aigron's somewhat abstract words, but Teresa, as someone who has slept with him for so long and has similar life experiences, of course she understood immediately.
Got the meaning of Aigron.
"Your Highness, are you worried that we won't be able to have a good rest in the future?" She asked Aiglon, "We will be pulled out and crushed into ashes or something like that?"
Aiglon nodded slightly.
Teresa was also deeply touched - after all, the fate of Louis XVI and his wife was still fresh in her memory.
And she also knew that this might not be completely impossible to happen.
So, she leaned on Aigron's shoulder and whispered to him.
"Your Highness, I am not afraid even if this happens. Because I have already made this mental preparation before accompanying you to this country... But I firmly believe that at least we can do our best to leave enough for the people.
Grace, let this moment be postponed.
As long as we let the people enjoy wealth and prosperity, then we have completed our work, we can finish our lives with a clear conscience, and then hand over the country to our children and grandchildren, so why worry about the next thing?
Anyway, we can’t control it anymore.”
Having said this, Teresa smiled again and continued to comfort Aiglon, "Having said that, if our descendants make the people hate us so much, then we deserve this end. After all, we took the power of the monarch from us.
Then we passed the throne and authority to them, so we should bear this responsibility, shouldn’t we?”
"You are right, Teresa." Aigron agreed greatly and couldn't help but nodded heavily. "I have stated it countless times. I am the emperor of the French, not the emperor of France. I am the emperor of the empire."
Sovereignty comes from the people, not God, and my authority also comes from the authorization of the people... This is my political contract with the people. If in the future, the people really rise up to judge me because of the perverse behavior of our descendants, then I can be calm.
Accept it, because I have enjoyed it too much, and it is natural to pay a small price."
Aigron became more and more enthusiastic as he spoke, "Apart from people's reputation, we have nothing left to protect ourselves... No matter how strong the mausoleum is, as long as someone wants to destroy it, it can be easily done.
It works, just spend more dynamite. Only by leaving virtue and merit behind can we not suffer such misfortune."
"Yes." Teresa also nodded lightly.
Then, she looked at her husband with a calm yet slightly mocking and melancholy look, "Even if the worst case scenario does happen, then it doesn't matter. Should we be buried in the mausoleum together or be thrown away together?"
Entering a mass grave makes no difference to me... Your Highness."
If anyone nearby could hear the emperor, empress and his wife talking about such bizarre and abstract topics on this occasion, their jaws would definitely drop.
But in the eyes of Aigron at this moment, this determination to "live and die together" is nothing more than a great comfort.
After all, after getting married, two people can be regarded as a community that shares the same destiny. They have experienced the difficult moments of starting a business together, and have also experienced today's blossoming flowers. Even the false fame and disasters in the future are destined to be shared together.
What's wrong with this?
Not long ago, Agron and Teresa had a conflict over Maria. Even now, Teresa was obviously still a little angry, but when she was unhappy, she could see what she was thinking at a glance, and then responded with her words.
She comforted herself in this way...Isn't this a reflection of her deep affection?
Maybe, she had already thought about this from the moment the two people fell in love? So she can say such "terrible" words so calmly - what kind of determination is this?
Even though he had heard similar words from Teresa's mouth countless times, Agron still couldn't help but feel moved at this moment.
"Thank you, Teresa..." In full view of the public, Aigron couldn't bear to act too intimately, so he had to kiss her cheek gently, "It's great to have you by my side... We
We will reach the end of life together and then enjoy the praise of the world."
"Yes, I have never doubted this for a second -" Teresa nodded gently, "even when His Highness hurt my heart the most..."
…
Alas, I am so sorry for her. A similar thought flashed through Aigron again.
So, maybe... maybe I should be more careful in the future and not irritate her sensitive nerves anymore.
However, Aigron did not expect that extreme determination would often develop extreme ideas, and even unfold in an unexpected way.
During the loving conversation between the two people, the previous barriers seemed to disappear. Then the Agrons boarded the royal carriage together, and their children were placed beside them.
Leaving aside the infant Funina, Crown Prince Francois seemed quite excited. After all, he usually stayed in an empty and deserted palace. Being able to come to Paris today and see so many people would naturally make him feel...
novel.
Although today is his grandfather's funeral, he is not old enough to understand the meaning of "funeral". To him, this is a grand performance. Only in the future will he be able to excavate it from his remaining memories.
The significance of today to him.
Aigron glanced at his son with stern but endearing eyes, and then reached out to stroke his son's head.
He will be the one to bury our couple from now on. I hope he can sit firmly in his position - this strange thought suddenly crossed his mind.
After the family took their seats, the carriage slowly drove out of the Invalides, but the crowd that had gathered outside the door to pay tribute to Emperor Napoleon had not yet dispersed.
Likewise, the excitement of the crowd had not dissipated yet. When they saw the carriage in which the royal family was riding appeared in sight, the emotions that had just subsided were immediately rekindled.
"Long live the Emperor!" Waves of cheers came to the Aigrons like a tide.
Although they were surrounded by black veils representing mourning, at this moment, people sincerely cheered for the family.
This is not surprising.
After all, although the buried emperor was great, he was only a relic of the past. The past could only be remembered, but it could not replace the life of the present.
But now, the Aigron family is the present, the future, and hope for them.
In such a roaring and tsunami-like scene, Aigron and Teresa, who had already seen similar scenes, naturally had no stage fright. They faced the crowd with smiles and waved at the same time.
But the crown prince obviously had not adapted to such a big scene. He stood timidly in the carriage, at a loss, and instinctively wanted to hide back in his mother's arms.
However, Aiglon grabbed him and adjusted his body with his arms, forcing him to face the cheering people in front of him.
Because this is the foundation for everything in his future.
"Boy, I hope you don't let them down!" Aigron lowered his head and warned in his ear, "For them and for us."