No spectacle can be more distressing than that of this cemetery, to which access is gained by a side door in the wooden palings that fence it round. It is a dreary plain, and has no sign to show it is consecrated to the departed. The ridges look more like trenches than graves. No living being has been led here by love to mark the mounds with a cross, neither is this sign of redemption erected over the door, as it is in the smallest hamlet; no holy-water is sprinkled over these graves. Why should no difference be made here between a churchyard and a public field? I again repeat that these 5,000 corpses are those of the deceased not claimed by relatives; and this it is which constitutes a striking inequality between the indigent who die in their own homes, and those who die in the care of public charity. When a poor man dies on his own bed, and has not left any provision for his burial, the mairie of his arrondissement has to provide a coffin gratis, and the municipal tax is suppressed; whereas no such generosity as a coffin is granted in the hospitals. A man dying here without the fourteen francs mentioned is carried to one or other of the amphitheatres. There is no favor shown, even were the departed your own mother. Fourteen francs for a ransom, or the heart of the parent that beat for you is the prey of medical students. A priest is sent for when the corpses have been dissected. It is then his duty to stand up, facing the mutilated remains, and to read the prayers for the dead. When this ceremony is over, they are conveyed to the hospital cemetery. Need I insist that the religious rite performed as I have described is of little consolation to those who are left behind? It is not a separate service for each of the deceased; several bodies lie together, or rather, the members of their bodies—a galling sight, which surviving relatives avoid. Neither can it be defended; for, until the religious ceremony has been performed, the remains are not collected in a coffin; they lie unshrouded, a hideous exposure of human flesh.
I here repeat that I am not opposed to medical science, nor to the dissection of certain corpses; it is an unavoidable process for the benefit of progress in surgery, and for that of the living; what I have in view is the welfare of the state as acquired by respect for ties of kindred, and by veneration for the mortal remains of Christians.
There is a middle course to be adopted very evidently—a course by which surgery and science generally would be promoted and the religious convictions of Christians not trampled under foot. I propose that, when any person claims the body of a parent or relative in the first degree, that person should be privileged to obtain gratuitous burial, if he or she prove utter incapacity to meet the expenses. This proof is acquired by a certificate from the almshouses, by receipts from the Mont de Piété (Loan Bank), by a line from the mairie, and other sources. A relative in the first degree implies a father, mother, wife, husband, son or daughter, brother or sister. Even were grandfathers and grandmothers included, the 5,000 corpses left to hospital charity would not be greatly diminished; 4,000 bodies would remain at least for dissection—those of wandering strangers, of lawless, unknown persons mostly—and surely this is a high figure for the indigent population of one capital. There are no better surgeons in Europe than those of Göttingen, Wurzburg, Salerno, Montpellier, Vienna, and Berlin, and yet these cities have not near so many dead bodies in their amphitheatres.
I say that a Christian must feel deeply for those who are left without proper burial, a sign on their tombs, a stone to perpetuate their memory for a few years. All this is replaced by the jests of indifferent students; and, instead of the friendly parting kiss, there is the surgeon's instrument on a loved brow.
O old reminiscences of the early catacombs! how far off, how faint, are you now. Who is there in this large city that remembers what a work of mercy it is to bury the dead? O village churchyards! in the centre of which rises the humble church-spires; O graves! over which the fervent kneel every Sunday—graves that never open to give up their dead; O hallowed spots! around which thoughts of God are united with thoughts of our dear ones, and where the past is folded, as it were, hand in hand with the future, how do I prefer you to these grand cemeteries, in which there is so much show for one or two, and nothing for the poor man who will want no more!
FOOTNOTES:
[47] When an invalid enters a Paris hospital, the shirt he had on is taken from him. It would be but charitable to return it to the family in case of death.