credulity of the zealous catholics, respecting this wonderful saint,
have been exhibited in their proper light by Voltaire, as you may see
by consulting the _Questions sur l'Encyclopedie_, at the article
_Denis_.

It is in every person's recollection that, in consequence of the
National Convention having decreed the abolition of royalty in
France, it was proposed to annihilate every vestige of it throughout
the country. But, probably, you are not aware of the thorough sweep
that was made among the sepultures in this abbey of _St. Denis_.

The bodies of the kings, queens, princes, princesses, and celebrated
personages, who had been interred here for nearly fifteen hundred
years, were taken up, and literally reduced to ashes. Not a wreck was
left behind to make a relic.

The remains of TURENNE alone were respected. All the other bodies,
together with the entrails or hearts, enclosed in separate urns, were
thrown into large pits, lined with a coat of quick lime: they were
then covered with the same substance; and the pits were afterwards
filled up with earth. Most of them, as may be supposed, were in a
state of complete putrescency; of some, the bones only remained,
though a few were in good preservation.

The bodies of the consort of Charles I. Henrietta Maria of France,
daughter of Henry IV, who died in 1669, aged 60, and of their
daughter Henrietta Stuart, first wife of Monsieur, only brother to
Lewis XIV, who died in 1670, aged 26, both interred in the vault of
the Bourbons, were consumed in the general destruction.