Os a Friday morning, in Sept. 1827, I set out to pay my first visit to Père la Chaise. Notwithstanding the advanced state of the season, the day was altogether delightful. It had succeeded a night of heavy rain, the traces of which were yet slightly visible on the ground. Yet it was soft and warm, as a spring day in England; and to heighten the resemblance,. there was a light breeze, just sufficient to fan the cheek, and raise the hair, and make the blood run cheerily to the fingers' ends. The walk was long; and I made it longer by going once or twice astray. At length the numerous shops of sculptors and stone-masons announced the proximity of Père la Chaise. I approached it by the Barriere d'Aunay. At the instant a funeral procession appeared turning the corner of one of the neighbouring streets. If I linger near the entrance, thought I, until an opportunity of throwing myself into its ranks offers, I shall witness the ceremony of a French interment.

I ac

cordingly proceeded leisurely to the gate. I expected an inscription; there was none-nor was the gate, in any respect, an object of the slightest interest. It resembles the gate to the back avenue of an old-fashioned demesne in England. In the semicircular recess before it there are tables and small booths, at which funeral crowns of immortelles (a little yellow perennial flower), and chaplets of roses, and bouquets of all sorts and sizes, are exposed for sale. Within the gate, on the right, stand the houses of the porter and the gardener, and of certain licensed sculptors and stone-masons. On the left are les Fosses Communes, in which paupers are buried at the public expense. A little beyond the lodge, and also to the right, is a piece of ground set apart for the burial of the Jews, against whom, strange to say, when we consider the period at which the cemetery was consecrated, some

enforced, even in death: they are not suffered to mix their dust with that of the professors of any other creed— with infidel or Christian. The chapel is in front: it is, apparently, a temporary construction, and deserves no notice.

By the time I had seen and ascertained all this, the procession arrived at the gate. It consisted of eight mourning coaches and about twenty fiacres, followed by a couple of dozen people on foot, who, though, in all probability, knowing as little of the deceased as myself, were yet induced to walk after the hearse for some short distance by a superstitious feeling, common, I believe, to the lower orders of all Catholic countries.

In the first of the mourning coaches were priests, in their usual magpie dress, attended by a little boy in a white surplice and red cloth cap, and a person in a full suit of black, silk stockings, cocked hat, and all the et cæteras. The hearse followed. Then came the chief mourner. As these coaches passed me, I could not avoid being in some degree amused at the appearance of the drivers; it was, if possible, more outré (I had well nigh said ridiculous) than that of their brethren of England. They were dressed in coats of rusty black, cut after a most curious fashion. Their heads were surmounted with cocked hats of an enormous size, and their legs buried in boots that came up so high as almost to supersede the necessity of unmentionables. When arrived at the entrance to the cemetery, I perceived that the mourning coaches were permitted to pass through, while the fiacres were stopped, and those who had travelled in them compelled to proceed on foot. The crowd moved on; and I, after having followed it for a considerable distance along a road bordered with sycamore-trees, was beginning to think our journey would never termien's

from tombs. Here the carriages drew up, and the priests and mourners joined the procession on foot. The coffin was then removed from the hearse to tressels held by the undertaker's men, and the procession moved towards the grave in double file, the two old priests forming the head of the column. While the coffin was removing, I had abundant opportunity of observing it; and, concluding from the number of mourners that the deceased must have been a person of respectability, I was extremely surprised at the coarseness of its appearance. In fact, it was neither more nor less than a simple rectangular box, daubed over, apparently, with a little brown paint, and without plate or decoration of any kind. The top part, or lid, certainly differed in some measure from the bottom, for it consisted of three boards, one large, that was parallel to the bottom, and two small, at obtuse angles to the sides; but it was utterly impossible to pronounce at which end the head lay. As soon as we reached the grave, the coffin was lowered into it; and after one of the priests had mumbled over, in unintelligible Latin, a few short prayers for the deceased, he sprinkled the coffin with holy water, and then handed the brush to the other priest, who, having gone through the like ceremony, transferred it to him of the cocked hat, and departed in company with his coadjutor. Immediately upon this a young man, dressed in deep mourning, advanced to the brink of the grave; it contained the mortal remains of his mother, and it was his duty, as the eldest son, to pronounce the funeral oration. During the delivery of the first few sentences, his voice trembled so much that they were not intelligible; but I could collect from the remainder of his speech that he praised his parent, as possessing those qualities we most love in woman,- tenderness, virtue, and obedience as a wife; true and devoted affection as a mother; and sincere and humble piety as a Christian. His language was simple in the extreme. It was evidently an overflowing of the heart; and so much of genuine and proper feeling did he display, that, strange as the custom, the scene, and the persons around me were, I could not refrain from a feeling of oppressive melancholy. The spell, however, was soon broken, and I rescued from my

shaking over the grave the holy-water brush, which had long before ceased to retain a single drop of the precious liquid; and as I turned away I felt the spirit of philosophy rise strongly within me. The brush I saw was passing rapidly from hand to hand; and I determined upon removing myself as soon as possible from a scene that had ceased to be interesting, and was now (to my eye, at least) ridiculous. I accordingly threw myself into one of the by-paths, and, after a few minutes' walking, found myself upon a beautiful little level green, in front of a small and delicately proportioned building, looking like a temple dedicated to the genius of the place, and modelled after our sensation of his gentle attributes; but temple I must not call it, how well soever it would become the name, since it is intended for a chapel in which the priests are to vend their prayers for the souls of the departed. It is situated upon the highest ground in the cemetery, and commands a prospect, the loveliness of which, though so often spoken of, is, after all, a thing to be felt, but not described; and never, never did I more fully enjoy an hour of existence than while I lay stretched upon the green turf, inhaling the clear, soft, balmy air of France, and gazing with the fullest fervour of admiration upon the beauties of the scene before me. To my right stood the picturesque heights of Montmartre, with its many windmills, the huge arms of which moved lazily in the breeze. The whole city of Paris lay extended at my feet, each separate house rearing its head visibly and distinctly into the free blue sky-the towers, the columns, the domes, the spires, asserting the full majesty of their height; while the wreaths of smoke, that would occasionally shew darkly for one moment, in the next were lost in the purity of the surrounding atmosphere. To the extreme left, one vast vineyard seemed to stretch away far and wide, from whose leafy bosom the countless châteaus appeared to rise like islands from the great deep. Immediately beneath and around me lay Père la Chaise itself, with its bowers of roses, its groves of cypress, and its five-and-twenty thousand monuments, offering to the eye every fantastic variety of form, from the lordly pyramid to the humble headstone; and this vision of surpassing

the following lines, which I consider an excellent specimen of French taste in its worst form:

"La France, en le voyant sur sa conche

étendu,

Implorait un accent de cette voix chérie, Hélas! au cri plaintif jetté par la patrie, C'est la première fois qu'il n'a répondu."

At each corner of the grave a spear is fixed, to which a black board, shaped like a heart, is attached. On the first of them is written, "Jemmappes, 1798;" on the second," Zurich, 1799;" on the third, "Passage du Rhin, 1798;" and on the fourth, "Waterloo, 1815."

He was, indeed, a brave soldier, but neither sufficiently great nor fortunate to be long remembered as a general. Nor was it for the blood he shed on behalf either of republican or imperial France that my heart hailed him as "Freedom's champion," but for the fearless and tremendous energy with which, as a citizen and an orator, he so constantly asserted the rights of the people, encouraging others with his voice, and at all times nobly setting himself foremost in the danger. His health sunk under the perpetual excitement of his mind, and he fell the thrice-holy victim to his patriotism. Well has it been said by the poet,

"Hélas! sa brulante énergie

A fait sa gloire et son malheur;
Son cœur inspirait son génie,
Son génie a brisé son cœur."

With respect to the general impression made upon my mind by the thousands of monuments I saw, it would be impossible for me to communicate any adequate idea. A man, in wandering through this cemetery, becomes exactly what Byron calls him

"a

pendulum between a smile and tear." Many of the epitaphs are affecting in the extreme, but there are others absolutely ridiculous. Some of the emblems, too, are chosen with the happiest taste; such as the hour-glass with wings, which is the ordinary one; and the broken column flung prostrate over the graves of those who have suffered a premature death. But there are others of a far different character; and to me the appearance of the flowerplats, into which many of the graves

are converted, though beautiful in itself, seems ill-associated with the presence of the dead. The chairs and tables placed in many of the tombs displeased my eye still more; but I could scarcely refrain from downright laughter, when I observed miniature

likenesses of deceased fair ones embedded in the head-stones. This strange specimen of "a longing after immortality" appeared to me exquisitely ludicrous; this posthumous pride of beauty, that would fain continue to exact the accustomed homage, under the guise of a sigh, for departed loveliness, while the form once so worshipped was now either swelling and festering beneath a —an object alike loathsome to every sense, or else confounded with the earth on which we trampled — a thing without a distinct existence or a

name.

In addition to all this, there be many other things to drag your spirit downwards, whenever may attempt too high a flight. You are perpetually offended with the sight of workmen passing to and fro, and the clank of the hammer and the wearisome grating of the saw are but seldom absent from your ear. Besides, you are often obliged to put a sad constraint on your risible muscles, while witnessing some of the scenes which you may see here enacted, gratis, upon any given fine day. The ladies, were it only to vindicate the titles commonly bestowed upon their sex, are, of course, more bountiful in such exhibitions than their rougher mates; they appear at the graves of their relations in a dress in which you cannot distinguish a single stitch of white, and the prettinesses displayed in their grief are occasionally most amusing. The grand display, however, is on All-Saints Day, when at least a third of the population of Paris proceed to the cemetery in their "inky suits," and pay their respects to their defunct kinsfolk.

Placards, too, which continually obtrude themselves upon the view in all places of public resort throughout France, from a picture-gallery to a forest, are very frequent in Père la Chaise. They contain the police regulations for the government and ordering of the cemetery, declaring to you, in terms extremely positive and

at dictum of Napoleon

terse, what you may do and what you may not do therein, where you may walk and where you may not walk, together with much other information of the like nature. Amongst the rest, you are given to know, that the ground for graves is disposed of either for six years or for ever. It would appear, however, that, though latitudinarians in points of doctrine, and religious observance, and profession, they are, nevertheless, curious in "Christian burial;" for I scarcely saw a single tomb upon which "Concession à Perpétuité" was not inscribed.

Père la Chaise is surrounded on all sides by walls; after Montmartre it affords the best position of defence in the neighbourhood of Paris, commanding as it does the vast plain of Vincennes. In 1814 it was attacked by the Russians, under Barclay de Tolly, and defended most gallantly by some of the pupils of the military schools. The walls enclose fifty-one arpents. Since its consecration, Père la Chaise has been the favourite burial-place of the Parisians; but, like their salons, it is open to persons of all religious professions and opinions, of all politics, and of all nations. In this mute congress, therefore, there is no sect of the faithful or unfaithful, believers or unbelievers, liberal or antiliberal, throughout the civilised world, without its representatives; nor is there any country. Of late years, England has sent very many; and, by consequence, bestowed upon Père la Chaise a number of its most beautiful and costly edifices. Indeed, in one spot I found myself altogether surrounded by monuments

to "

our English dead." Now, there was something so very foreign in the aspect of all around, even to the vast extent of the cemetery-something so diametrically opposite to the unpretending beauty and reverent seclusion of an English churchyard, that the sight jarred upon my feelings. I could not bring myself to believe that my poor countrymen "slept well :" it was not "snug lying." I do not use the words in a spirit of ridicule - by no means; for these tombs, that might not elsewhere have claimed the slightest notice, here assumed a thrilling interest; and as I stood amongst them, and read in my "native English" memorials briefly recording the fulfilment of the fate of those who lay beneath, involuntarily my eyes filled with tears

as I thought of my own far home, of the living and the dead. These, however, were not subjects to dwell upon in such a place, albeit I was an exile in accordance with my own good pleasure. So, to excite another train of ideas, not sad nor yet joyous, but shadowed with that gentle touch of melancholy which, whether drawn from memory of the past or boding of the future, adds depth and fervency to our most exquisite sensations of pleasure, I resolved to hasten my pilgrimage to the tomb of Abelard and Heloisa. Once within its precincts, imagination could not well be busy with other themes than Love and Poesy. Mine was not. The monument pleased me much: its form and architecture, more remote than any other within the cemetery, associated well with the remote date of the story, which has exercised the genius of so many writers; and the effects of time, here and there slightly visible on the massive stonework, harmonised beautifully with the feelings of the spectator, seeming to assure him that every self-humiliating record of mortality had long since passed away, and that he now only gazes on a temple to unhappy Passion. Here, too, the garlands, wherewith the French girls love to decorate the altar of the shrine (if such I may venture to call it), seem expressive of a sentiment in which one can well avow a sympathy; and, in my mind, the fresh flowers add a touch of interest to the their bright dyes contrasting oddly, but very pleasingly, with the rudely sculptured, time-stained figures that repose, after the old Gothic fashion, upon the tomb-stone.

scene

But, independent of all this, and independent of the charm belonging to a thing so deeply hallowed by recollections, the monument is in itself a beautiful object, and therefore could not fail, however tenanted, to secure the attention of the passer-by. Without attempting to convey any distinct idea of it by description, which would be impossible, let me simply say, that its form is rectangular, its architecture Gothic, its appearance that of a sepulchral chapel; that the roof (from the centre and angles of which small and delicately sculptured steeples burst forth) is supported by ten arches, resting upon fourteen columns; and that a very ancient sarcophagus rests within.