The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-19 00:00:00

THE, STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

It was variously estimated by some of the police
authorities that 35,000 or 40,000 persons were present
in all. Photographs were given away to those who
entered Camden-park early, chiefly French visitors
who had obtained cards at the meeting at Willis's-
rooms. Two thousand photographs were speedily ex-
hausted. Rain falling in the afternoon greatly reduced
the number of the throng. In the afternoon the mor-
tuary built at Camden-place, in which the coffin had
been deposited for a night, was visited by very many
people, and large quantities of flowers were presented
to the visitors as souvenirs by the graceful act of the
Imperial family.
This little chapel in the vestibule was filled with
beautiful wreaths. They came from Corsica and
Chambdry, from the Lycde Bonaparte, from Princess
Metternich, and a little one from the child whom the
Prince last kissed before he left England. Some 500
or 600 wreaths were sent, and many hours were
devoted on Friday aight to'lmpacking them.

On Sunday mass was said in Chislehurst Catholic
Church at eleven o'clock by the Bishop of Southwark
in the presence of the Imperial family and a numerous
congregation, and the Cardinal Archbishop of West-
minster, who has just been deprived by death of his
own favourite nephew, Monsignor Manning, preached
from the top of the steps of the sanctuary a most
pathetic sermon. As his text the Cardinal took the
verse from the Gospel of St. John :—" What I do thou
knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."
He said :

"Ever since death entered into the world the dead have
been carried out and laid in their quiet grave and the
mourners have gone about the streets. And in the long
succession of sorrows there have been voices of lamentation
and of sympathy in all the world. But perhaps few have
beea more generous, more tender, or more widespread
than the sorrow which yesterday surrounded th is tomb—
the loving sorrow of many nations—a sorrow pure and
generous, springing from the heart and ascending to the
Throne of God It is a wonderful mystery of God's sove-
reign wisdom. A youth so fair and so noble, so blameless, and
so brave, so high in intellect and so cultured, so attractive
in all his ways, so winning in his speech, so humble in his
dignity, so loved by all—that he should have come like a ray
of April sun, as it were, for a moment, and pass away, giving
a transient promise of sunshine, ending for ever in a cloud—
this, I say, is a mystery of God's sovereign wisdom, I know
not how to explain it, save only in the words of our Divine
Muter when he washed His disciples' feet, and Peter would
not let Him, 'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou
shalt know hereafter.' The day will come when all will
be clear in that inaccessible light in which all the mysteries
of God lie hid, which shall be revealed in the day when we
shall see him face to face." . .

The Cardinal, after some reflections on the vanity
of merely human foresight, which he enforced by
quoting from the Lord's Prayer the words which
ask for daily bread this day merely, concluded as
follows :

"And now, as in a strain of music, the theme comes back
again, and we end with the first few notes with which we
began. So, if our thoughts have for a while run in another
Lhanuel, they fall back again to that great deep of sweet
sorrow and, I will say, of holy thanksgiving for that noble
princely youth who has passed before our eyes with the
brightness of a ray of light, and for this world has dis-
appeared for ever. I said it was indeed a sorrow of many
nations. I doubt if a purer sympathy, more generous,
more disinterested, more free from every taint of this
world, ever surrounded a tomb. I doubt if ever the nations
of Europe united in one generous sense of loving sorrow, of
sympathy with the mother in her solitude, of veneration
for the son lying in a grave of honour and glory; where-
ever there is a generous heart on earth it will sorrow;
wherever there is a Christian heart there will be sorrow;
wherever there is a human heart there will be sorrow. And
I know few things more beautiful than the sorrow and the
veneration of those hard, strong English soldiers, who bore
him to the grave, and of those rough, tender-hearted Eng-
lish seamen who stood high upon their masts with bare
heads venerating him as he was borne past them in his
shroud. This is a noble sorrow, and I will say it is an Eng-
lish sorrow. France sorrows, and England too. He was our
guest. I will say more—he was our own. We bad received
him and made him ours by loving and homely hospitality.
He was numbered among our princes ; and he will be re-
membered and sorrowed for among English Princes. And
yesterday the princes of England stood round about him, and
England herself, represented in her Queen, supported the
weakness of that lonely mother In the solitude of her home.
There is not a mother in England who has not joined in this
sorrow, and there are many mothers in England who have
given their sons in this wild and dreadful warfare. And I
know that the youth of England, those that never saw him,
have been touched, and his bright example has spoken to
them; and comrades in arms, men who bore arms like himself,
have wondered at the purity, the holiness, and the dignity of
that youth. And, now, it is to me a great joy and consola-
tion to be permitted en such a day as this to add my own
sympathy. And I do so with personal recollections. I re-
member, and as long as I live shall never forget, the first
time and the last time that J saw that youthful Prince. The
first time was when one of my venerable priests had the
strange courage, I know not how, to invite him to come to
the opening of a new school that he had built for poor little
children in London. With that humility which belongs to the
highest dignity, and with the sweetness of the true humility
of a Catholic heart, he came. I remember how, in the
midst of these poor little ones, himself then a youth—
for it was years ago—with his bright smile and his
kind voice, he gave them joy in the midst of that
humble festival. I never shall forget that night. It
was a beautiful vision to be for ever remembered Such ,
was the first time. The last time was a year ago. He was
standing in a numerous assembly. There were there the
statesmen and the warriors, and the great administrators
of the British Empire. In war and in peace there was the
culture and the manhood of Englishmen; and be rose up
and with an intellectual power and a precision of language
in our own mother tongue, and with an eloquence of speech
he so arrested that multitude before him that they hung
upon his lips. As I listened I said to myself, Whatever
may be before that youth, there is the power that controls
and persuades men in him.' It is now in the Heavenly
Kingdom. But these are the things of the earth. He has
himself given us a revelation of that which we could
never otherwise have known, written in his own cha-
racters. How shall I describe it? Was it a prayer to His
Heavenly Father? Was it an oblation to his Divine Matter?
Was it a sacrifiee of himself? I have hardly in my memory
read anything more elevating or which showed more clearly
the spirit of God guiding and elevating the soul of man. It
was full of self•sacrifice, full of self-devotion, full of repara-
tion, full of offering himself as a victim. 'Smite me if any
are to be smitten. If Thou will make reprisals, here
I am.' And, thinking over these words, I have said to
myself, If there was ever a son of France, it was he. France
is that great people which has been created by soldiers and
by priests—the soldiers vested with a sacerdotal charac-
ter because fall of faith; priests with a martial courage
that not only fears no martyrdom, but courts it. And the
spirit of the soldier and the priest guided the hand that
wrote that prayer. But, dear brethren, one last word and that
is all. I have spoken of the sorrow of many nations and the
sorrow of England, of her Queen, of her princes and
princesses, and of her people. There is one sorrow left.
And yet Ido not know how to speak of it. What a morning
In life it was when that beautiful youth entered into this
world? What a mother's joy; what a redoubled joy when
the Vicar of Jesus Christ took him for his foster-son I What
a joy in his growing boyhood, what happiness what sweet-
ness I If ever son was worthy of a mother's love it was he.
And if ever mother loved a son as an only son can be loved,
it was she. What a desolation now I The solitary home,
All alone. Yet not alone. For they who believe
are never lonely. They have come unto Mount
Sion and the City of the Living God,' to the innumerable
company of angels, to the Church of the First-born
written in Heaven. to God, the Judge of all, to the
perfect, to the great crowd of wit.
spirits of the just made
nesses round about them. The communion of saints in their
home and their dwelling-place, and as that mother, who
when her own Son was in the grave looked on with certain
confidence to the glory of the Resurrection, to the future
recognition of personal identity and restored bonds of
mother and of on in all the perfection of maternal and filial
love glorified ha eternity, so God tells us now. And this will
be her consolation. And in the light of that glory the words
will unfold themselves in letters of light, and will need no
Interpretation. 'What Ido thou knowest not now, but
thou shalt know hereafter.' It is but a little while. The
words that Jesus spoke are spoken again. ' A little while,
and you shall not see Me; and again a little while, and
you shall see Me. because Igo to My Father.' And what is
the longest life of waiting but a little while at last?"
After the service the congregation came forward to
see the coffin through the iron bars of the temporary
sepulchre, where it lies surrounded by wreaths of white
enchant, roses, stephanotis, violets, and lilies. Princess
Mary, Duchess of Teck, arrived in the afternoon with
the Duke of Teck, visited Camden-house, and placed
a wreath within the ante-sacristy of St. Mary's
Church. The Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg- Strelitz
and Princess Frederica of Hanover paid the like tribute
to the family and the dead. Lord Gerrard was also
among the many hundreds of visitors who made their
way to the house. Thousands passed through the
church. In their anxiety to possess relics some dug
up stones from the beds of the graveyard, others
plucked the flowers and leaves which grew near and
round the ivy-clad parsonage, some did not respect the
wreaths placed at the tomb.

Preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral, on Sunday, the
Rev. H. 'Wheeler, Senior Chaplain of Woolwich
garrison, at the close of his sermon, asked the
prayers of the congregation to the Almighty to extend
that sympathy and consolation He only could afford
to the illustrious lady who mourned with a deep
sorrow for the loss of her only son—one who had received
his education partly at the great Military Academy at
Woolwich, and who endeared himself to his fellow
students by his extreme courtesy, manly bearing, and
generous heart,

Alluding to the amulet found rouad the Prince Im-
perial's neck, the Voce delta Veritct tells us that it had
belonged to Charlemagne, and that it had descended
from king to king, until it came into the possession of
Napoleon 1., whose family it had not afterwards left.

One of the rare mourners of Bonapartism is M.
Thelin. He was a page under Napoleon I; he was
present at the deaths of Josephine and Hortense, and
also at that of the elder brother of Napoleon 111., in
the Roumagna expedition; he followed the late Em-
peror in America, England, and to Ham ; was at his
funeral, and now assists at the interment of his Ilon—
a witness of the extinction of a dynasty.

The Prince's saddle, with the holsters torn away,
arrived at Chislehurst on Saturday, and was narrowly
examined by his relatives. As an example of the
nimble way in which the Prince when in ordinary
health behaved on horseback, Lord Gerard communi-
cated to the household that the Prince riding with
him one day in the country sprang up and stood on
his saddle and so vaulted into a tree beneath which he
and his companion were riding.

Before the Prince Imperial started on the fatal ex•
pedition, says the Natal Mercury, he wrote a few lines
to the Empress, his mother, remarking, when doing
so, "You never know what may happen." He pro-
bably shared the fatalistic belief in " destiny " which
possessed both his great uncle and his father. If this
were so, it would account for the indifference he dis-
played to the ordinary risks of savage warfare.

In a leader on the funeral ceremony The Times remarks :
"The thoughts of many who take part in the ceremony will
go back some forty-seven years, to the time when another
Napoleon, also a y outh, died at Schtinbrunn. But the end
of the Due de Reichstadt had less of tragedy in it than that
of the Prince imperial. The second Napoleon knew at first
hand nothing of his father's greatness, He was born in the
decadence of tie Empire, on the eve of the expedition to
Russia, and when the end was at hand. He was reared at
the Austrian Court, where his father was spoken of as an
usurper. Ho could have no memory of grandeur which
ho had once shared, no strong present stimulants to
ambition, no hopes of greatness to come. Had he lived and
exhibited more energy and genius than he actually possessed,
he could never have mended the fortunes of his House, and
the only career before him was probably not mare romantic
or glorious than that which is before every Archduke who
commands a regiment. The Prince Imperial's fate was in-
finitely sadder. Lie was born in the purple and at the zenith
of the Second ltmpire. His birth took place only a fortnight
before the conclusion of the peace with Russia, and the
events which luickly followed seemed to presage a happy
and a brilliant reign in store for him. His earliest
recollections were of the marvellous successes of his
father. When the Prince was a child of three he
may have heard the rejoicings in Paris for the
victfories of Magenta and Sattrino. N 9 ruAer in modem
times, since the Firs* Napoleon after tife pate of Tilsit,