Instead of those barons who vexed the universe,
We see on the remains of your deserted donjons
Cruel wolves wander, together with hungry foxes:
Under different names, they are of the same race.
And he immediately adds a note of which I reproduce only these few lines: "I am very far from confounding modern castles with ancient ones, and the castellans of today with those of former times. The modern chateaux are not soiled with the blood of their vassals, but how many are still bathed in their tears!... The castellans of today are, however, distinguished for the most part by a reputation for humanity, philosophy, politeness. But let us plumb these shining exteriors. In these so human mortals, you will find... tyrants inflexible to their inferiors. Their philosophy is still less solid than their humanity.... As to this politeness so vaunted by them, it is in the final analysis nothing but the art of graduating and seasoning scorn, so that one does not perceive it and even enjoys it.... They seem to except you, to distinguish you from the common herd; but try to emerge from it, and they will thrust you back." The whole bit would be worth quoting. It is beautiful, this outpouring of venom on account of a garden pavilion!
In the midst of a thicket, in a place which was formerly open, a little pyramid stands on a high base. The inscription which it formerly bore in golden letters:
L'INDEPENDANCE AMERICAINE
has disappeared. Reflections of Cérutti upon "the impetuous car of revolutions": events have combined to give them a certain opportuneness here.
The mingling of centuries and the diversity of allusions were one of the laws of the composition of an English garden. This is why, a little farther on, we penetrate to the "Valley of Tombs." A Latin inscription invites visitors to meditation and silence. An avenue of cypress, of larches, of pines, of junipers, "of all the family of melancholy trees," led to the tombs and disposed the soul to meditation. Sepulchers "without worldly pomp and without curious artistry," bore naïve epitaphs. Here were the tombs of Thybaud de Betz, dead on a Crusade, and of Adèle de Crépy, who, having followed her knight to the Holy Land, brought back his mortal remains and "fell dead of grief, at the last stroke of the chisel which finished ornamenting this monument." The epitaphs were engraved in Gothic characters; for "this Gothic form is something more romantic than the Greek and the Roman." It is needless to remark that these tombs were simple monuments intended for the ornamentation of the garden and that no lord of Betz was ever buried in this place. Some of the "melancholy trees" planted by the Princess of Monaco still remain among the thickets which have since grown in the "Valley of Tombs," which valley was an "elevated esplanade": a pleasing incongruity of the friends of nature! As to the tombs, there remain only a few mutilated remnants of the statues of the two recumbent figures.