Each of the great cemeteries, both within and without the walls, is
under the charge of a _conservateur_, having under him a receiver or
steward, a surveyor, clerks, guardians, and grave-diggers. The guards,
who number in all a hundred and thirty-five, including five brigadiers
and fifteen sous-brigadiers, have all been sworn into office and are
empowered to draw up procès-verbaux. The landscape-gardening of the
cemeteries is all under the direction of the _service des promenades_,
and the municipal administration of the city of Paris takes a laudable
pride in maintaining the picturesqueness and attractiveness of these
places of sepulchre. Many of the tombs, or funerary monuments, are
preserved through legacies or donations, and the city assumes the care
of others possessing an historical or patriotic interest, as those of
Abélard and Héloïse, of Molière, of La Fontaine, of Casimir Périer, and
the "four sergeants of La Rochelle." Consequently, the cemeteries of the
capital are, distinctly, one of the features of the city,--Père-Lachaise,
particularly, is a most curious, picturesque, original, and
characteristic "sight," and, alike on the day of Toussaints when they
are visited by the populace almost _en masse_, and when they receive the
solitary funeral procession winding slowly through the streets, the
carriages followed by a long train of mourners on foot, they may be said
to be truly representative institutions of this people with whom we are
for the moment concerned.
"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."
[Illustration: TOMB OF ABÉLARD AND HÉLOÏSE, CEMETERY OF PÈRE-LACHAISE.]
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.
That lugubrious institution, the Morgue, dates from 1714, at least; it
was then a low room in the basement of the Châtelet, near the vestibule
of the principal stairway, and in the court adjoining was a well, the
water of which served to wash the corpses. It was under the care of the
_filles hospitalières de Sainte-Catherine_, and was, as may be supposed,
a noxious cell in which the bodies, thrown one upon the other, waited to
be inspected by the light of lanterns by those searching for missing
relatives or friends. In March, 1734, it was thronged with visitors
attracted by the unusual presence of some fifteen or sixteen infantile
corpses, none of them more than three years of age; it appeared that a
celebrated anatomist, Joseph Hunault, had collected these subjects for
his investigations, in the house of a surgeon, the affrighted neighbors
had complained to the police, who had caused them all to be transported
to the Morgue. A police ordinance of August 17, 1804, directed that this
establishment be suppressed, and that all bodies drawn from the river or
found elsewhere should be taken to the new Morgue on the Marché-Neuf, in
the quartier de la Cité. The object of the municipal administration was
to secure the recognition of the greatest number possible of these
remnants of humanity, and for this purpose they were exposed, for three
days at least, behind a glass screen protected by a rail, on inclined
tables of black marble, the heads reposing upon a raised piece covered
with leather. There was provided a room for the autopsies, containing
two dissecting-tables; another for the washing of the garments found on
the dead, and a third for those bodies recognized or in which
decomposition had proceeded too far to permit of their public exposure.
Two attendants were always on duty to receive any bodies that might be
brought, at any hour of the day or night.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CEMETERY OF PÈRE-LACHAISE.]
In 1809, it was proposed to transport the Morgue to a site between the
Pont Saint-Michel and the Petit-Pont, but in 1830 it was enlarged and
improved where it stood; in 1864, it was transferred to its present
locality, behind Notre-Dame, between the Pont Saint-Louis and the Pont
de l'Archevêché. The bodies were still exposed nude, with the exception
of a leathern apron across the loins, on twelve black marble slabs, to
the public gaze, with their garments hanging over them; to preserve them
as long as possible, they were exposed to a constant sprinkling with
fresh water. When recognized, or when they could no longer delay, they
were carried into the adjoining _salle du dépôt;_ adjoining was the
_salle d'autopsie_, and, on the ground-floor, the _salle des
conférences_, in which the accused were brought before and after being
confronted with the bodies of their supposed victims. Some of these
arrangements are still preserved in the present institution; but, since
the establishment of the _appareils frigorifiques_, or freezing
machines, in 1881, the length of time during which a corpse may be
preserved has been greatly extended, from one month to years, according
to various claims. In the _salle d'exposition_ the temperature is
maintained at about zero, Centigrade, freezing point, Fahrenheit; and in
the cells in which the bodies are first placed, at fifteen degrees below
zero, Centigrade. The bodies of criminals are not submitted to the
public inspection. The garments are returned to the families, when the
body has been recognized or burned; their sale has been forbidden since
1883.
All persons are formally invited to furnish any indications they possess
that may lead to the recognition of the bodies, and are informed that
they will be put to no expense. A photographic plant was installed here
in 1877, and all bodies are photographed,--those which are not
recognized before burial have these, their last portraits, affixed at
the entrance. The number of corpses received annually is about nine
hundred, including new-born babies, foetuses, and the remnants from the
dissecting-tables, and this number increases year by year. In it are
included also those bodies which it is desired to submit to a
medico-legal examination. About six-sevenths of the total number exposed
are those of men, and about one-seventh are never recognized. The
sanitary surveillance is under the charge of three medical inspectors;
not only are the autopsies here frequent, but there are also held many
conferences in legal medicine, and there is a laboratory of toxicology.
All departments of the establishment are cramped for want of space, and
it is proposed to establish a distinct medico-legal institution on a new
site, at the angle of the Quai aux Fleurs and the Rue du
Cloître-Notre-Dame.
On the crest of the hill in Père-Lachaise, in a fine open space from
which the tombs recede on all sides,--as if appalled at the presence of
this horrible new-comer,--rises the tall Crematory furnace, with its
quasi-classic columbarium behind it. Great improvements have been made
in the material details of this method of disposing of the dead since
its first revival in modern times, and even since the erection of this
edifice,--but the overturning of immemorial prejudices proceeds but
slowly. France claims the credit of introducing this excellent sanitary
measure, and as far back as the end of the last century, in the year V
of the Republic, a law was proposed by a commission of the Cinq-Cents
granting to each family the privilege of choosing between inhumation and
cremation for their dead. Later, "the administration centrale of the
department of the Seine adopted a regulation prescribing the cremation
of all those bodies destined for the fosse commune whose owners had not
expressed, during their lifetime, a contrary desire. Under the
Consulate, Madame Geneste, wife of the citizen Pierre-Francois Lachèze,
chargé d'affaires of the French Republic at Venice, obtained from the
préfet Frochot an authorization to cause the body of her deceased son
to be burned. The préfet invoked, in support of his decision, this
consideration, 'that the last cares to be rendered to mortal remains
constitute a religious act of which public authority cannot prescribe
the methods without violating the principle of liberty of opinions.'
Madame Dupuis-Geneste, however, did not make use of this authorization."
In 1882, M. Casimir-Perier, then minister, proposed a law granting to
every person who had attained his majority and to every minor who had
been relieved from guardianship, the power to regulate all the details
of his own funeral at his own discretion. The _Société pour la
Propagation de l'Incinération_, which now includes six hundred members,
had been founded two years before by M. Koechlin-Schwartz and M.
Georges-Salomon, and this society caused to be erected, in
Père-Lachaise, in 1887, on the plans of the architect Formigé, a
building destined for the cremation of dead bodies,--this process, it
was declared by the _Conseil d'Hygiène et de Salubrité de la Seine_, on
the proposal of Doctor Bourneville, could be applied to the disposal of
subjects from the dissecting-tables without any menace to the public
health, provided that it was effected in suitable furnaces and without
emitting any odor. M. Casimir-Perier's proposal was finally recognized
by the Chamber and the Senate in 1886 and 1887, and this legal sanction
decided the question practically in favor of the Cremation Society and
of the Conseil Municipal of Paris, which had long been in favor of the
optional incineration of the dead.
The first apparatus, a reverberatory furnace burning wood, was found to
be entirely insufficient, and was replaced by a chamber of combustion
filled with incandescent gas, much more elaborate in construction. A
special apparatus, called a _Gazogène_, evolves carbon protoxide,
which, set on fire by peculiar burners, produces a temperature of eight
hundred degrees Centigrade in the chamber of combustion. The entire
arrangement at Père-Lachaise is some nine mètres in height by five and a
half in width, the actual furnace is below the chamber of combustion and
not directly under it, this space being occupied by long, perpendicular
flues through which the air--fed through a large horizontal shaft
passing under the furnace--rises. In the chamber of combustion, into
which the body is introduced in its coffin, the destruction was formerly
effected by the aid of the actual flames, and the result was not
completely satisfactory,--the skull was left almost intact and some of
the bones, with a few fatty acids and salts. The attendants gathered
these remnants up with pinchers, brushed the black and greasy residue
from the bones, and placed the whole in a little wooden casket, about
the size of a child's coffin, for final deposit in the columbarium. Now,
by the improved process, the total residue that issues from the furnace
is a quantity of white ashes, varying from nine hundred to twelve
hundred grammes in weight, although the flame is no longer permitted to
reach the body and the combustion is effected by refraction alone. A
curious detail in both operations is that the liver is the last of the
organs to be destroyed, and remains an incandescent mass when all the
rest of the body has disappeared.
[Illustration: UNDERGROUND PARIS: ARCH OF THE GREAT SEWER, UNDER THE RUE
ROYALE, CORNER OF THE RUE DE RIVOLI.