By a strange chance, on the very morning that Marie
Antoinette's sufferings came to an end on the Place de
la Revolution, the body of another unfortunate queen
again saw the light of day — it was on the i6th of October
that the body of our Queen Henrietta Maria, who had
died in 1669, was taken from its coffin and added to the
ghastly heap in the " ditch of the Valois,'' as the pit into
which these royal remains were hurled was called ; that
of her daughter, the once " Belle Henriette," came next ;
and then in quick succession the bodies of Philippe
d'Orleans ; that of his son, the notorious Regent ; of his
daughter, the no less notorious Duchesse de Berri ; of her
husband, and half-a-dozen infants of the same family;
On the same day a coffin was cautiously opened. This
was found at the entrance of the royal vault (the
customary position for that containing the latest deceased
king), and contained the remains of Louis "le bieri
aimd" No wonder that the body-snatchers hesitated



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before withdrawing the corpse from its enclosure, for it
was remembered that Louis had perished of a most
terrible illness, and that an undertaker had died in con-
sequence of placing the already pestilent corpse in its
coffin. Consequently, it was only on the brink of the
ditch that the body was removed and hastily rolled over
the edge ; but not without the precaution of discharging
guns and burning much powder, and even then the air
was terribly tainted far and near.
