Paris, From the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 2

by William Walton

"The people of Paris," says M. Henry Havard, "are, assuredly, the most extraordinary people that there are in the world. [This, of course; no reference to the capital, even the slightest, is permissible without this statement.] Not only do they possess a prodigious quantity of remarkable qualities, and a number almost equally great of not less remarkable defects, but that which distinguishes them from the rest of humanity is, that their virtues and their vices, their good qualities and their defects, are in a measure contradictory.

"To cite only one example,—no population is more profoundly irreverent and more completely sceptical. The glories the most assured, the reputations the most solidly established, scarcely find toleration in their eyes. A scoffer by nature, a jeerer by temperament, a humbugger by education, the Parisian perpetually forces himself to accept nothing seriously, and to respect neither sex nor age nor glory. But, by one of those contradictions with which this character swarms, the moment that death has accomplished his sinister work, everything becomes to him sacred.

"When a funeral procession traverses a street or passes along a boulevard, all noise ceases at the moment, and it might be said that all life is momentarily suspended. Poor or rich, young or old, this dead man who, two days earlier, would have found no consideration from this jesting crowd, is respectfully saluted by the multitude. The vehicles which, during his lifetime, would have taken the chances of running over him sooner than slackening their speed, now pull up suddenly to allow him to pass. The sentry on duty salutes; the women cross themselves; the men uncover!

"In the enclosure specially reserved for death, the spectacle is not less edifying. There are but very few cemeteries in Europe as well maintained as the Parisian cemeteries. In no other city are they more frequently visited, and more respectfully. The multitude that there throngs scarcely dares to speak, and converses only in subdued tones. Even those who have in them neither relatives nor friends visit them at least once a year. The first and the second of November are generally selected for this pious pilgrimage. These are the fête-days of our cemeteries.

"In order that they may appear more attractive on these days, the toilette of the funeral monuments and the tombs is commenced long in advance. The bouquets are renewed. The wreaths that are too much faded are replaced by others. All the flowers freshly planted are carefully watered; each one employs his best taste in setting forth the resting-place of the dear absent ones. Regret makes itself friendly and gracious; grief itself takes on a little coquetry. Nothing is more delicate and more moving than this annual pilgrimage of the people of Paris to these places of eternal repose."

Many of the details gathered by M. Havard in the course of his careful inspection of these respect-compelling enclosures are worthy of preservation. In Père-Lachaise, for example, it is well not to be too credulous. "You may there discover, in fact, very many tombs decorated with names familiar in various ways, and even very great names, which certainly have never contained the ashes of those whose memory they honor. Neither Lavoisier, nor Lesurques, 'victim of the most deplorable of judicial errors,' as his epitaph says, nor General Malet, whose body was interred in the cemetery of executed criminals, would be able to find themselves under the monuments which a posthumous piety has reared to them. The same can be said of the tombs of Racine, of Molière, and of La Fontaine, which were the first to embellish these groves, and of which the style proclaims clearly enough that they do not date further back than the First Empire. It is the same for Héloïse and Abélard, and for their graceful little structure to which the lovers and the newly married do not fail to pay pious visits. This historic tomb, constructed of composite materials, is also of very recent erection. The two statues ornamented, in the last century, the monument which stood in the Abbaye de Paraclet; from there they were transported at first to the Musée des Petits-Augustins, and, in 1817, to the place where we now see them. The graceful canopy which covers them is formed of materials borrowed from the ancient Abbaye de Nogent-sur-Marne. As to the ashes of these perfect lovers, they have been scattered to the winds for a great many centuries."

Many of the old cemeteries in the city, he says, owe their temporary celebrity to the accidental interment within their enclosures of some particularly illustrious deceased. "That which surrounded Saint-Roch received the remains of Corneille. It is known that Molière was secretly buried in the Cimetière de Saint-Joseph, which received also the body of La Fontaine. As to the little cemetery of Saint-Gervais, we should be ignorant of its existence if the authors of the seventeenth century had not taken pains to reveal to us that Marion Delorme was there laid to rest. Still more, the fact would have remained unknown had it not been for the whim of her family which, after having crowned her with a wreath of orange flowers, had the assurance to accord her the funeral of a virgin. The curé of Saint-Gervais, who had received her confession, opposed this masquerading, and he did well. Let us not laugh too much at these curious pretensions. At Père-Lachaise, in the chapel in which Mlle. Mars reposes, there can be seen very clearly, through the gratings of the door, a wreath of white roses and orange flowers."

For the poor, the three great Parisian cemeteries have long been closed,—space within their walls is reserved by the law for the fortunate owners of the ninety thousand concessions perpétuelles. The indigent and the working population are relegated to the two enormous enclosures situated, the one at Ivry and the other at Saint-Ouen, which have received from the people the picturesque appellations of Champ de Navets and Cayenne. Champ de Navets means a turnip-field, and Cayenne is a penal colony. Even in this exile, the dead are allowed to rest undisturbed only five years; at the end of that period, the earth is reclaimed, turned over again, and prepared to receive new tenants for the same length of time. The surroundings of these two suburban cemeteries are, moreover, of the most barren and forlorn character; the plain around Saint-Ouen is occupied by various factories and manufacturing establishments which fill all the air with evil odors. The Fosse commune is simply a long trench in which the cheap coffins are placed all together, and the earth heaped over them indiscriminately. But even the tombs of malefactors who have perished under the axe of Justice are not forgotten in these dreary receptacles; although it is illegal to designate with a name the grave of one of these, "there are still to be found pious hands to mark these accursed tombs with a cross and to surround them with a modest railing. In the Champ de Navets there may be seen the grave of the assassin Géomey ornamented with wreaths bearing his initials, and the tomb of the infamous Vodable surmounted by a cross with this word: Ami.—friend." In Père-Lachaise, that of the socialist, Blanqui, is still the object of annual pilgrimages and "demonstrations," which frequently culminate, as on the very last anniversary, in a free fight among the pilgrims, and the intervention of the police; and the "wall of the Federals," against which the Communists were stood up to be shot, is almost covered with memorial wreaths. "How many years longer," says M. Havard, "will there still resound these instigations to hatred and these appeals to vengeance?"

The only private cemetery in Paris is that of Picpus, the entrance to which is in the street of the same name. When the guillotine was transported from the Place de la Revolution to the former barrière de Trône, it became necessary to find in the quarter a place of burial for the victims, and the Commune of Paris selected, on the 26th Prairial, year II, a "piece of ground that had belonged to the so-called canons of Picpus." Here these victims of "the law" were interred, to the number of thirteen hundred and six, all executed between the 14th of June and the 27th of July, 1794; and this cimetière des guillotinés has been preserved as the property of the relatives and friends. It includes the tombs of a number of the most ancient and illustrious families of France, that of General Lafayette, of General de Beauharnais, of the poet André Chénier, of Talleyrand, Montalembert, etc. It was acquired, under the First Empire, by the Prince de Salm-Kirbourg, one of whose ancestors had been buried in the Revolutionary fosse commune; and is open to visitors on payment of a fee of fifty centimes. The victims of the guillotine of the Place de la Concorde were buried in two provisional cemeteries which have disappeared,—one which had served as a kitchen-garden for the Bénédictines in the Rue de la Ville-l'Évêque, and the other near the Folie-Chartres, in the neighborhood of the present Parc Monceau and the Boulevard de Courcelles.