[Illustration]
(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)
Sir,--As one of your correspondents has favoured you with a drawing of
the gaol I designed for the city and county of Norwich, with which you
have embellished a recent number of the MIRROR, I flatter myself that an
engraving from the drawing I herewith send you of the mausoleum of
Gaspard Monge, which I drew while at Paris, in 1822, will also be
interesting to the readers of your valuable little miscellany. Gaspard
Monge, whose remains are deposited in the burying ground in Pere la
Chaise, at Paris, in a magnificent mausoleum, was professor of geometry
in the Polytechnique School at Paris, and with Denon accompanied
Napoleon Bonaparte on his memorable expedition to Egypt; one to make
drawings of the architectural antiquities and sculpture, and the other
the geographical delineations of that ancient country. He returned to
Paris, where he assisted Denon in the publication of his antiquities. At
his decease the pupils of the Polytechnique School erected this
mausoleum to his memory, as a testimony of their esteem, after a design
made by his friend, Monsieur Denon. The mausoleum is of Egyptian
architecture, with which Denon had become familiarly acquainted.
There is a bust of Monge placed on a terminal pedestal underneath a
canopy in the upper compartment, which canopy is open in front and in
the back. In the crown cavetto of the cornice is an Egyptian winged
globe, entwined with serpents, emblematical of time and eternity; and on
the faci below is engraved the following line:--