SPECIAL ISSUE (8/9) – Thousands of people came to pay their last respects. Respected and loved, the Queen Mother passed away at the age of one hundred and one.
In her carriage, Elizabeth goes up the Mall to Buckingham Palace after attending her mother’s funeral at Westminster Abbey. On her coffin, she placed a wreath of white roses, with these words: “ In loving memory, Lilibet. On either side of the avenue, the crowd is silent. Everyone loved Queen Mum. She was 101 years old and did not long survive her youngest daughter, Margaret, who died in February. Elizabeth lets herself be overwhelmed by memories. Suddenly, a sort of shudder runs through the audience. Like a rising breeze.
The first applause rings out, piano, piano. Then louder and louder. Elizabeth feels her heart sink. She instinctively understood that it is not only a question for these thousands of strangers to show her their sympathy, but to pay homage to her. For his tenacity. His courage. For what it is in their eyes: a rock, a beacon. The breakers had beautiful relentless on it. Year after year. Her Majesty, as she had promised on the day of her oath, has always held firm.
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Faced with the press which has been so relentless on his own. In the face of scandals that threatened to depreciate the monarchy. Facing Diana who seemed to have dethroned her in the hearts of the English. Faced with the incredible emotion aroused by the death of the Princess in 1997 and the incomprehension, then the anger, shown by the subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty when Elizabeth did not return to London until five days after the accident at Paris. She had explained herself, saying that for her the most important thing had been to protect her grandsons, William and Harry.
On the day of Diana’s funeral, Elizabeth waited, standing in the middle of her family, for the funeral procession of the one who was no longer a Royal Highness since her divorce. It cost him. But the Queen nodded as Diana’s coffin passed. The British were grateful to him. The unscrewing of “ at Firms has yet left its mark. Roped behind Her Majesty, slowly, step by step, the Windsors climbed the slope.
Elizabeth showed herself to be more and more warm while maintaining a necessary distance and refusing to get emotional. His weapon? Humor. Caustic. Very British. And soon the polls, which had never shown a rejection of the sovereign, confirmed that she was still acclaimed by a large majority of Britons.
They now chant their applause. The queen saw a moment of grace. One of those moments that justify an entire existence. For her, it’s a new coronation. The sacred of respect. In an era where slackness, relativism, self-worship and the right to happiness have imposed themselves, Elizabeth has stayed the course. Over time, it has improved, like a good wine, but remains durable. Like Big Ben, which continues to strike Greenwich Mean Time. Like the Yeomen who guard the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London and form a procession, in red and gold uniform, to the sovereign when she goes to Parliament for its solemn opening in November. Like the waters of the Thames flowing under Tower Bridge.
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It has often been described the course of an ordinary Queen’s day which begins when the Scottish guard rings at 9 a.m. from the bagpipes outside her windows. More often still, we have counted the letters she receives every year, the events in which she participates, the audiences she grants, the receptions she gives, the trips she has made, the hours spent , standing, in the rain, in the wind or in full sun, beset by flies.
The British know his taste for detective novels, cinema, photography, crosswords, his passion for the equestrian world and corgis dogs. They know the queen hates oysters and shellfish. Let her take neither the theatre, nor the opera, nor the music. Or light.
But watching this seventy-five-year-old woman pass by who has just said goodbye to her mother, they realize that in reality their queen remains an unknown. A mystery. Like all human beings. And it is perhaps to this sphinx, both distant and familiar, that they wanted to pay homage. In saluting their sovereign, they told her of their desire to support her.
This article is taken from Figaro Special Edition “Elisabeth II, The Last Queen”.