Père Lachaise Cemetery

“ The burial-ground of Père-Lachaise occupies the ancient domain of Mont-Louis, a property given to Father Lachaise by the king, and which in time became known exclusively by the name of its owner. It is for the most part an aristocratic cemetery. Although it contains monuments characterised by a solemnity befitting the idea of eternity, it is by no means the depressing, melancholy, awe-inspiring place which one might expect so vast a necropolis to be. On the one side wealth lies buried, on the other indigence. ”

“ I took the letter and read:
"Have you perhaps forgotten a poor woman who has forgotten nothing and who dies because she can not forget?
"When you receive this letter I shall be no more. Then go to the cemetery of Pére-Lachaise, tell the concierge to let you see among the newest graves one that bears on its stone the simple name 'Marie,' and when you are face to face with that grave, fall on your knees and pray." ”

“ Read, search, find one appeal to murder, to pillage, a single cruel line in all these Communard journals excited by the battle, and then compare them with the Versaillese papers, demanding fusillades en masse as soon as the troops shall have vanquished Paris.
Let us follow those catafalques that are being taken up the Rue de la Roquette, and enter with them into the Père Lachaise cemetery. All those who die for Paris are entombed with obsequies in the great resting-place. The Commune has claimed the honour of paying for their funerals ”

“ Père-Lachaise, the most important and most picturesque of these enclosures in Paris, takes its name from the confessor of Louis XIV, to whom it was presented by his royal penitent. The Cimetière de l'Est was inaugurated, in 1804, in a locality which originally bore the name of Champ l'Évêque, because it had been the property of the Bishop of Paris. The Jesuits purchased it, in 1626, under cover of a private individual, and established there a country house, surrounded by trees and shrubbery, the site of which is indicated to-day very nearly by the central rond-point of the cemetery. ”

“ His curly white hair was extremely well kept. He wore spotless white spats all the year round, and always had a flower in his button-hole: Parma violets in winter and a pale pink carnation in summer. He had one curious mania—he visited cemeteries. We frequently went together to the Père Lachaise and to his favourite Montmartre cemetery.
"The Père Lachaise," he exclaimed, "possesses the tombs of Musset, Balzac, Chopin, La Fontaine, Bizet, of your 'friends' Cuvier and Thiers, and others, but it is too fashionable, too showy.... ”

“ And yet, upon the grave of the martyr, Marsa prayed also for the executioner. She remembered that the one who reposed in the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, beneath a tomb in the shape of a Russian dome, was her father, as the Tzigana, interred in Hungary, was her mother; and she asked in her prayer, that these two beings, separated in life, should pardon each other in the unknown, obscure place of departed souls. ”

“ No word is said; sceptics themselves know not what they are feeling. Spanish genius alone was able to bring this untold majesty to untold griefs.
When the solemn ceremony was over, twelve men came from the six chapels and stood around the coffin to hear the song of hope which the Church intones for the Christian soul before the human form is buried. Then, each man entered alone a mourning-coach; Jacquet and Monsieur Desmarets took the thirteenth; the servants followed on foot. An hour later, they were at the summit of that cemetery popularly called Pere-Lachaise. ”

“ Not tombs nor temples nor sanctuaries are safe from the profane and polluting feet of the buzzing plague of them. You journey miles away from this spot to the great cemetery of Pere Lachaise. You trudge past seemingly unending, constantly unfolding miles of monuments and mausoleums ”

“ The end came in Paris with the close of the century he had done so much to adorn. He died on November 30, 1900, and was buried, by his faithful friend, Robert Ross, in a grave which was leased for a few years in Bagneux Cemetery.
The kindness of Robert Ross to Oscar Wilde is one of the most touching things in literary history. The time has not yet come to speak of it at length, but the facts are known and will not always be withheld. Owing largely to his efforts, a permanent resting-place was secured a few years ago in the most famous cemetery in France, the Père Lachaise. ”

“ I want to walk to straighten my legs.”
And to avoid these invitations, which were beginning to embarrass him, he took an almost deserted pathway, one that proved too deserted indeed, for hardly had he taken a step along it before he regretted it. Ever since entering the cemetery he had had but one preoccupation—the fear of finding himself face to face with Jansoulet, whose violence of temper he knew, and who might well forget the sacredness of the place, and even in Pere Lachaise renew the scandal of the Rue Royale. ”

“ Great hopes are entertained that the rains will check the conflagration. A few shells have fallen in the Rue de la Paix. Constant arrests or executions are being made of women who throw incendiary matter down the cellar gratings. Many bodies have been exhumed from under shattered houses, some with large sums of money on them. News reaches us that troops of the Line have occupied Ménilmontant and the Cemetery of Père-Lachaise. The Federals had declared Père-Lachaise to be their last stronghold, and that they were prepared to defend it tomb by tomb. ”

“ When they reached it they found (as at the doors of museums, galleries, and coach-offices) ciceroni, who proposed to guide them through the labyrinth of Pere-Lachaise. Neither Jules nor Jacquet could have found the spot where Clemence lay. Ah, frightful anguish! They went to the lodge to consult the porter of the cemetery. The dead have a porter, and there are hours when the dead are “not receiving.” It is necessary to upset all the rules and regulations of the upper and lower police to obtain permission to weep at night, in silence and solitude, over the grave where a loved one lies. ”

“ Père Lachaise stands just beyond the Barrière d'Aulney, on a hillside looking toward the city. Numerous gravel walks, winding through shady avenues and between marble monuments, lead up from the principal entrance to a chapel on the summit. There is hardly a grave that has not its little enclosure planted with shrubbery, and a thick mass of foliage half conceals each funeral stone. The sighing of the wind, as the branches rise and fall upon it—the occasional note of a bird among the trees, and the shifting of light and shade upon the tombs beneath have a soothing effect upon the mind ”

“ After a most revolting account of the mode of burial of the poor in Père-Lachaise, the statement follows that "the Americans are the only people who bury their dead decently and beautifully—that is, so far as the present mode of sepulture will allow them. For beauty, extent, careful planting, picturesque views and keeping, the garden cemeteries formed within the past generation near all the principal American cities are a great advance upon anything of the kind in Europe." ”

“ The latter, the necropolis of the left bank of the Seine, is the least interesting and least visited of any of the Parisian cemeteries. The ground is quite level, and the enclosure so crowded with tombs that there is very little space left for verdure or shade. The number of distinguished dead who rest here is also less than in either Père-Lachaise or Montmartre. Previous to 1824, it received only the human débris from the hospitals and the bodies of criminals from the neighboring scaffold. ”

“ I do not remember any spot, either in church or churchyard, where the unequal dignity of the memorials raised above the dust which lies so very equally beneath them all is shown in a manner to strike the heart so forcibly as it does at Père Lachaise. Here, a shovelful of weeds have hardly room to grow; and there rises a costly pile, shadowing its lowly neighbour. On this side the narrow path, sorrow is wrapped round and hid from notice by the very poverty that renders it more bitter ”

“ It is a very interesting sight, and visitors to Paris should not omit on these days to go to Père-la-Chaise, Passy, Bolougne-sur-Seine, or one of the other cemeteries.
The French pay great respect to the dead. No funeral cortège is allowed to trot in Paris whatever the distance to the cemetery, and most men raise their hats and women cross themselves as the body passes in the streets. Soldiers and officials always salute. ”

“ One could wander for ever in the wilderness of art at Versailles, and it must be a restless ghost that could not content itself with Pére la Chaise for its elysium.
This beautiful cemetery is built upon the broad ascent of a hill, commanding the whole of Paris at a glance. It is a wood of small trees, laid out in alleys, and crowded with tombs and monuments of every possible description. You will scarce get through without being surprised into a tear; but, if affectation and fantasticalness in such a place do not more grieve than amuse you, you will much oftener smile. ”

“ In Paris, unless on very exceptional occasions, or when some famous man has died a natural death, the crowd that gathers about a funeral diminishes by degrees as the procession approaches Pere-Lachaise. ”

“ Paris had for centuries been wretchedly supplied with cimetières. For long one only had existed, that of the churchyard of St. Innocents’, originally a piece of the royal domain lying without the walls, and given by one of the French kings as a burial-place for the citizens, when interments within the city were forbidden.
It has been calculated that from the time of Philippe-Auguste over a million bodies had been interred in these fosses communes.
[Pg 145] In 1785 the Council of State decreed that the cemetery should be cleared of its dead and converted into a market-place. ”

“ Those who love history for its romance, those who have been touched by the tale of the lovers, will gaze with interest on these two faces; and if they are not satisfied they may go to Père Lachaise to continue their devotions in presence of the monument to their memory. If, however, they should have consulted M. Edouard Fournier beforehand, they will have been warned that the medallions of the Quai Napoleon and the statues of the tomb are anything but authentic. “The medallions,” says this unerring critic, “in costumes of the time of Henry IV. represent lovers of the{157} twelfth century. ”

“ THE CEMETERY OF PERE LA CHAISE.
Is this the abode of the dead?—Oh no!—
The symbols of joy are here,—
Gay wreaths round columns of marble glow,
From bright-wing'd birds sweet melodies flow,
Nor cypress nor yew are near. ”

“ Our national character, and our more sober religion, will preserve us, probably, from the affectations and fantastic fineries of the Père la Chaise ground at Paris. From some of the German cemeteries we may learn much as to regulation, and the proper character to be maintained in a cemetery of the dead.
National sepulture is a part, and a most important part of national religion; of all the beautiful services of our Church, none is more beautiful (I might wish, perhaps, two expressions altered) than our service for burial. ”

“ The demand became large; an improved furnace was soon devised, the unclaimed bodies at the hospitals and the remains at the dissecting rooms being cremated there, besides a large number of embryos. In 1906 the number, including the last-named class, was 6906. The total number of incinerations at Père Lachaise down to December 31st, 1906 (including both classes) was 86,962; but the employment of cremation for the purposes named has deterred a resort to it by many. Had a separate establishment been organized for the public, its success would have been greater. ”

“ You do doubt it? Go to Père-Lachaise: twenty paces to the left of the tomb of General Foy, you will find a simple stone, surrounded with flowers always well kept. Upon the stone you can read the name of my heroine graven in large characters: ARSÈNE GUILLOT, and, by bending over that tomb, you will discover, if the rain has not already effaced it, a line traced with a pencil, in very fine writing: "Poor Arsène! she prays for us." ”

“ Altogether different from the Père La Chaise, or any other cemetery which I had ever visited before, it struck me as constituting the very beau ideal of a burying ground,—grave, yet not severe,—neat, yet free from every approach to gaudiness,—well kept, yet bearing about it no impress of the hands that trimmed it, and in its situation and arrangements perfect. Here are no clumsy pillars, nor urns, nor sarcophagi, no, nor even crosses. Flowers are utterly unknown, and garlands tabooed. ”

“ FOOTNOTE: "Un grand nombre de voitures de deuil et de voitures particulieres," we read in the Gazette musicals, "ont suivi jusqu'au cimetiere de l'Est, dit du Pere-Lachaise, le pompeux corbillard qui portait le corps du defunt. L'elite des artistes de Paris lui a servi de cortege. ”

“ The production of the doctor's certificate would justify him in taking the order and concluding the arrangements.
There are coffins in the London cemeteries which contain no bodies. Over some of the graves there are memorial stones, and, as in Wilkie Collins' famous story, "The Woman in White," it sometimes happens that the "dead person" goes to the cemetery and reads the touching tribute to his or her virtues.
It may even be—I have heard the story told—that the dear departed will go to the cemetery once a year and lay a memorial wreath upon her own grave. ”