By the way, her ladyship rents the Hotel de la Rochefoucauld, in the
Rue de Varenne, Faubourg St. Germain.
St. Germain is full of these princely, aristocratic mansions. Mournfully beautiful—desolately grand. Out of the stern, stony street, we entered a wide, square court, under a massive arched gateway, then through the Rez-de-Chaussée, or lower suite of rooms, passed out into the rear of the house to find ourselves in the garden, or rather a kind of park, with tall trees, flooded in moonlight, bathed in splendors, and with their distant, leafy arches (cut with artistic skill) reminding one of a Gothic temple. Such a magnificent forest scene in the very heart of Paris!
Saturday, June 18. After breakfast rode out to Arc de Triomphe—de l'Etoile, and thence round the exterior barriers and boulevards to Père la Chaise.
At every entrance to the city past the barriers, (which are now only a street,) there is a gate, and a building marked "Octroi," which means customs.
No carriage can pass without being examined, though the examination is a mere form.
Père la Chaise did not interest me much, except that from the top of the hill I gained a good view of the city. It is filled with tombs and monuments, and laid out in streets. The houses of the dead are smaller than the houses of the living, but they are made like houses, with doors, windows, and an empty place inside for an altar, crucifix, lamps, wreaths, &c. Tombs have no charm for me. I am not at all interested or inspired by them. They do not serve with me the purpose intended, viz., of calling up the memory of the departed. On the contrary, their memory is associated with their deeds, their works, the places where they wrought, and the monuments of themselves they have left. Here, however, in the charnel house is commemorated but the event of their deepest shame and degradation, their total vanquishment under the dominion of death, the triumph of corruption.
Here all that was visible of them is insulted by the last enemy, in the deepest, most humiliating posture of contumely.
From Père la Chaise I came home to dinner at six. H., meanwhile, had been sitting to M. Belloc.
After dinner H. and the two Misses C. rode out to the Bois de
Boulogne, the fashionable drive of Paris.
We saw all the splendid turnouts, and all the not splendid. Our horse was noted for the springhalt. It is well to have something to attract attention about one, you know.