Céline Dion Meets Mourners For Late Husband René Angélil

Céline Dion greeted mourners inside Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica this afternoon, where hundreds of members of the public lined up to pay their respects to the singer’s late husband, René Angélil, who died last Thursday in Las Vegas after a long battle with throat cancer. His funeral will be tomorrow afternoon.

A black-clad Céline, with a veil over her eyes, greeted family and friends as well as prominent Quebec figures. She stood next to her and René’s eldest son, René-Charles, near the open coffin as people hugged her and offered condolences. “Merci, merci,” the sad songbird was heard telling the grief-stricken. Céline’s mother, Thérèse, was also there.

Mourners leaving the church received a photo of René with a message from Céline, in both French and English. “I understood that my career was in a way his masterpiece, his song, his symphony,” she wrote on the card. “The idea of leaving it unfinished would have hurt him terribly. I realized that if he ever left us, I would have to continue without him, for him.”