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Show CELEBRATES H)3 OWN FUNERAL. After Solemn Mass Over nn Empty Coffin All Adjourn to a Banquet. An up to date disciple of Charles V Of Spain has held at a village of the Yonne department, in France, a kind of dress rehearsal of his funeral while yet in the land of the living. For the past year gravediggers and masons had been engaged in preparing the. gentleman's gentle-man's tomb, and he had surveyed the work with, loving care. When everything every-thing was ready, he had a handsome marble slab put up, with the date of his birth and the list of his titles and distinctions, winding up with the comforting com-forting assurance that he "had been a good father and a law abiding citizen" inscribed thereon. On his ninety -fifth birthday all his friends and acquaintances acquaint-ances were invited to the rehearsal of his funeral. A solemn burial service took place at the churoh, and his empty coffin, placed under a catafalque and surrounded with wax candles, received an anticipatory blessing. To cheer up his guests, whom this lugubrious ceremony cere-mony must have somewhat depressed, he then bade them repair to his house, where a grand banquet took place, at which the beadle, the choristers and the priests who are to officiate at his real funeral were present Each guest pledged his word in a bumper of champagne cham-pagne that if he were still living at the time he would not fail to "assist" at the funeral ceremony cf which the rehearsal re-hearsal had just been gone through. The real event may not come off yet awhile, for this imitator of the famous emperor is still quite hale and hearty in spite of bis 95 summers. London TelesrraDh. |