The tombs that were originally in the choir, commemorating Charles Vth, of France; Richard Coeur de Lion; his elder brother, Henry; and William, son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, were all removed in 1736, as interfering with the embellishments then in contemplation. The first of them alone was preserved and transferred to the Lady-Chapel, where it has subsequently fallen a victim to the revolution. The others are wholly destroyed; nor could Ducarel find even a fragment of the effigies that had been upon them; but engravings of these had fortunately been preserved by Montfaucon[81], from whom he has copied them. The monument of the celebrated John of Lancaster, third son of our Henry IVth, better known as the Regent Duke of Bedford, had been previously annihilated by the Calvinists. Lozenge-shaped slabs of white marble, charged with inscriptions, were inserted in the pavement over the spots that contain the remains of the princes, and they have been suffered to continue uninjured through the succeeding tumults. On the right of the altar, you read,--
COR RICHARDI, REGIS ANGLIÆ, NORMANNIÆ DUCIS, COR LEONIS DICTI. OBIIT ANNO MCXCIX.
HIC JACET HENRICUS JUNIOR, RICHARDI, REGIS ANGLIÆ, COR LEONIS DICTI, FRATER. OBIIT ANNO MCLXXXIII.
AD DEXTRUM ALTARIS LATUS JACET JOHANNES, DUX BEDFORDI, NORMANNIÆ PROREX. OBIIT ANNO MCCCCXXXV.
Of Prince William nothing is said; it was found, upon opening his place of sepulture, that he had not been interred here.--Richard strangely received a triple funeral. In obedience to his wishes, his heart was buried at Rouen, while his body was carried to Fontevraud, and his entrails were deposited in the church of Chaluz, where he was killed:--this division is commemorated in the quaint, yet energetic lines, which are said to have been inscribed upon his tomb:--
VISCERA CARCEOLUM, CORPUS FONS SERVAT EBRARDI, ET COR ROTOMAGUM, MAGNE RICHARDE, TUUM. IN TRIA DIVIDITUR UNUS QUI PLUS FUIT UNO; NEC SUPEREST UNI GLORIA TANTA VIRO.
Richard neither withheld his gifts nor his protection from the metropolitan church; and, after his death, the chapter inclosed the heart of their benefactor in a shrine of silver. But a hundred and fifty years subsequently, the shrine was despoiled, and the precious metal was melted into ingots, forming a portion of the ransom which redeemed St. Louis from the fetters of his Saracen conqueror.