“Everyone contemplated the coffin in silence… after a moment of meditation, of absolute silence, the Queen, with a respectful, calm and severe expression, turned to the (thirteen-year-old) Prince of Wales, and putting her hand on his shoulder said “Kneel down before the tomb of the great Napoleon”. At that moment, a terrible storm, to which the torrid heat of the last few days had been working up, burst forth. Great peals of thunder shook all the windows of the chapel, and their sound went echoing round the vault. Rapid and ceaseless flashes of lightning gave an almost supernatural aspect to the moving and solemn scene, by continually illuminating it with an unnatural brilliance… Waterloo, St. Helena, the English alliance, England in the person of her Queen and of the future King who was kneeling before the remains of Napoleon; all that made my senses reel… I could no longer control myself and began to weep” (Marechal Canrobert – sobre a visita de Vitoria e do futuro Eduardo VII ao túmulo de Napoleão em 1855)
