GOODBYE DIANA; ROYALS JOIN MOURNERS IN LONDON.

Byline: Ray Moseley Chicago Tribune 

Queen Elizabeth II, speaking to the British nation ``from my heart,'' bestowed glowing praise Friday evening on Princess Diana as ``an exceptional and gifted human being'' just 17 hours before the princess's funeral in Westminster Abbey.

In an extraordinary and highly emotional day, the bitter public reproaches to the royal family of the past few days were forgotten as the queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and the young Princes William and Harry moved among the mourning British public for the first time since Diana's death Aug. 31.

There were tears from both the queen and her subjects, but Diana's sons bore up bravely and even smiled broadly several times in acknowledging the sentiments of well-wishers. Their father, Prince Charles, looked more subdued and even distraught.

Ripples of applause greeted the family members at each appearance. Many people afterward said they still thought the queen had waited too long to act, but one man said: ``All the nation has forgiven her now.''

The queen's four-minute speech was a calm and measured address from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, with her back to the crowds of mourners and banks of flowers in the street below. It was just one of several gestures by her and other members of the royal family intended to assuage public anger and hurt at the family's silence and absence from London during a huge outpouring of public grief.

Millions of people poured into central London, taking up all-night vigils on the sidewalks in preparation for the funeral procession of Diana from her home at Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey.

Police had prepared for huge crowds, up to 6 million people, lining the processional routes into the abbey and out of it en route to Diana's burial in her family's ancestral village of Great Brington, north of London. These numbers would make it the largest crowd for any event in British history, probably for any funeral in world history.

But even these crowds were dwarfed by the several billion people around the world who had been expected to watch on television.

Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer and Diana's younger brother, announced Friday that his sister will be buried on an island in an artificial lake on the Spencer estate of Althorp, near the village of Great Brington, rather than in the Spencer chapel at the village's 14th century Church of St. Mary the Virgin as originally planned.

He said the change will let Diana's sons visit her grave in private. It will be open to the public several weeks each year, he said, and a monument to Diana may be erected outside the grounds of Althorp.

Diana died Sunday after a car crash in Paris that also killed her boyfriend, Emad ``Dodi'' al-Fayed. Even in the hours before her funeral, the controversy over that crash grew.

Representatives of al-Fayed's family held a news conference to present a forensic expert and video security film from the Ritz Hotel in Paris to challenge claims that the driver of the car, Frenchman Henri Paul, was drunk and had taunted paparazzi photographers before the fatal drive.

Professor Peter Vanezis, head of forensic medicine at Glasgow University, said a French pathologist's report, which said that Paul had three times the normal blood alcohol level, was unreliable.

He said it was quite common in air crash victims to find high alcohol levels in their ruptured bodies caused by bacteria and other chemical reactions, producing alcohol levels in people who have not drunk anything.

Paul also was scheduled to be buried today, but his funeral was postponed, possibly to allow a new blood test.

In Paris, the Spencer family filed a civil suit that would allow them to claim damages if the photographers go to trial.

But the highlights of the day were the queen's brief speech and the royal walkabouts outside Kensington Palace and St. James's Palace, where Diana's coffin had rested all week.

Royal biographer Anthony Holden said the family's change of course in responding to public grief was crucial.

``There was a grave danger (that), if they had not done this, the queen herself would have been booed on Saturday,'' he said.

In her speech, the queen offered no apologies for her long absence from public view, but said the expressions of grief for Diana's loss, and of gratitude for ``her all-too-brief life'' provide an opportunity ``to show to the whole world the British nation united in grief and respect.''

It was only the second time in Elizabeth's 45-year reign that she has addressed the nation other than for her annual Christmas speech. The other occasion followed the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

She said the initial shock of Diana's death was followed by ``disbelief, incomprehension, anger and concern for those who remain.

``We have all felt those emotions in the last few days,'' she said. ``So what I say to you now, as a queen and a grandmother, I say from the heart.

``First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.

``I admired and respected her for her energy and her commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.''

She said the family had been trying, during this week at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, to help William and Harry to come to terms with their ``devastating loss.''

She thanked all those who had brought flowers, sent messages and paid their respects ``to a remarkable person.''

True to her stoic nature, the queen spoke in a firm voice and betrayed no sign of emotion.

But earlier, among crowds outside Buckingham Palace and St. James's Palace, where she and Philip went to sign a book of condolences, the queen's eyes sometimes filled with tears as people thanked her for coming and handed her flowers.

Outside Kensington Palace, people were caught by surprise by the unannounced appearance of Charles and the young princes. ``God bless you,'' one man shouted. ``Love you,'' shouted a woman. Many wept openly as the princes moved among them.

William, 15, looking calm and composed, suddenly broke into a broad smile when one group applauded. He and Harry went over to shake hands, and were given single lilies, which they added to the mound of flowers that stretches 100 yards in front of the palace.

Harry, 12, reached out and placed his hand on the shoulder of one woman, and smiled.

One woman said she had told William that ``we were so sorry for him, and his mother will live on in him. He said, `Thank you.' ''

A man told William: ``You're going to make a wonderful king.'' Again William responded with a polite ``thank you.''

On Friday evening, Charles and his sons went to St. James's Palace to view Diana's coffin shortly before it was taken by hearse to Kensington Palace to rest in her apartment overnight.

Hundreds of thousands of people crowded along the London streets watched in relative silence as the hearse made its way slowly between the two palaces. The coffin was draped in the red and gold royal standard, and was surmounted by a bouquet of lilies from the royal family.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Color) Princes William, left, and Harry wipe their eyes after looking over the tributes to their mother, Princess Diana, left outside Kensington Palace in London on Friday.

Associated Press

(2--Color) Princess Diana 1961 - 1997

Box: FIRST COVERAGE