Prés de mourir, elle nous disait: Ne pleure pas,
Papa; ne pleure pas mamma; je me sens mieux,
Et elle mourut!
Of a son:
Passant, donne une larme à ma mere, en passant à la tienne.
Of a wife:
Elle vecut bien, elle aima bien, elle mourut bien.
Of an old woman of 81:
Une jour on dira de moi, ce qu’on a dit des autres;
Marie Anne Palet est morte, et l’on n’en parlera plus.
This one is pretty:
Pauvre Marie,
A 29 Ans!
There is a still prettier one of the same kind at New York. “My Mother.”
The simple language of the heart succeeds better in epitaphs than the
“lettered Muse;” for grief at the dissolution of natural ties is usually
more intense amongst the poor than the rich; this is notoriously
manifest in the funeral ceremonies of Père la Chaise. How indeed should
any lady not rejoice when her lord is dead, if she looks well in black?
and my young lord who has popped into an estate and title, how should he
be sorry? One ought not, however, to blame the rich for exhibiting the
signs of woe even where the reality is deficient. The affectation of a
virtue is better than the neglect of it; but I would not have it carried
to a ridiculous excess. I have heard of a French nobleman here, a M.
Brumoi, who, at his mother’s death, put his park into mourning; he
craped his deer; put black fish in his ponds; and brought from Paris
several barrels of ink to supply his _jets d’eaux_. And every one has
read of the Danish count, who had his statue placed by the grave of his
wife upon a spring, causing the water to spurt through one of the eyes.
This statue exists yet near Copenhagen, and is called the “Weeping
Eye.”--You will often see, amongst the poor of Père la Chaise, a
half-grown girl kneeling by the fresh earth after the convoy has
departed, or a mother lingering over the grave of her child.
I ascended the hill again by the east side. Only think of walking upon
the very earth consecrated so often by the pious footsteps of Madame de
Maintenon. It was here she poured out her little peccadillos into the
bosom of Père la Chaise. She brought him out from his obscurity of
schoolmaster of Lyons, and raised him to the dignity of confessor (some
say rival) to the king. This father was of extraordinary personal
beauty, and polished manners. When he had stepped into the graces of the
king, he used the royal favour to enrich himself and his order. His
style of living was magnificent, his equipages gorgeous, and in his
costly banquets he rivalled the most sumptuous monarchs. To gain
admission to his soirées was a favour solicited by princes. He was
crafty, wily, subtle, and eloquent, says Duclos, and he alarmed or
soothed the conscience of the king as best suited his interests. “He
surprises his Majesty,” says Madame de Maintenon, “into the most
boundless liberality, by the mere force of his eloquence.” The king
pronounced himself, the _éloge_ of his confessor at his death in 1709.
“He was always,” says his Majesty, “of a forgiving temper.”
On the site of these tombs, were once his pleasure grounds, and here the
proud Jesuit often stood and looked down upon the court and city at his
feet. The ruins of his elegant summer palace have perished, but a part
of his orchard still remains. I walked up through a low valley, once the
channel of a stream that had supplied the water pots, the cascades, and
fountains of this reverend father. It is a romantic spot, but barren of
trees and shrubbery. I would plant here the drooping willow, the cypress
of hoary gray; and I would teach the jay bird, in its plumage of crape,
to build here its nest; and, while ambition climbs the summit of the
hill, the tender poets and the unfortunate lovers should come to be
buried in this melancholy valley.
It is an advantage of eternity, that one may squander as much as one
pleases of it without diminishing the capital. I found that the sun of
our world was descending fast upon the roofs of St. Cloud, and I was
obliged to run over an acre or two of graves with only a general stare.
I hurried about in search of several I had heard distinguished for their
splendour, but in vain. There should be a “directory” to tell us where
the dead people live. I stumbled at last upon a whole plot of English,
coteried apart near the wall side; General Murray; Cochran, brother of
the admiral; Caroline Sydney Smith, my lady Campbell, Captain O’Conner,
and other august personages. Their tombs are very genteel. An Englishman
always seems to me (foolishly perhaps) a greater man than a Frenchman,
and a Roman than a Greek, with the same degree of merit. The one, I
believe, makes his wisdom pass for more, the other for less than it is
worth. The great polish of the human character diminishes its solidity.
Lord Chesterfield would have been a greater man if he had been more an
Englishman.
Lord Bacon and Shakspeare both say, that a certain reserve of speech and
manner adds to the general opinion of one’s merits. The Frenchman
wastes, and the Englishman husbands his greatness; the latter hides his
little passions, and does small things by deputy. Like Moses, he retires
into the mountain, and bids Aaron “speak unto the children of Israel.”
But the truth is, there is an illusion in my mind at present about all
that is English; I have been so long over head and ears in French
people. I read over these English graves as a studious school-boy his
lesson.
Whilst perusing this page of the great volume, I came with astonishment,
not expecting such a rencontre, upon the names of several of our own
countrymen, and even of our own townsmen. Of Philadelphia were William
Temple Franklin, Adam Seybert, our old congressman and chemist, Samuel
Rawlston and Jacob Girard Koch; he who used to “breakfast with the
Houris and quaff nectar with Jove at noon.” His great regret, they say,
in dying, was an apprehension that there might not be good dinners in
the other world. There is here an eloquent and simple tomb upon the
grave of Miss Butler, who was cut off in the expectation of unusual
accomplishments and in the roseate freshness of her youth.
“Rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses,
L’espace d’un matin.”----
I remarked, also, the names of K. M. Smith, New York, Harriet Lewis, New
London, Frances Morrison, Kentucky, Francina Wilder, and Mrs. Otis of
Boston. A cypress is planted by the grave of Dr. Campbell of Tennessee,
and some fresh garlands are hung upon its branches. Who is he who has
won these pious attentions from the hands of strangers? I am now writing
from the inkstand which once belonged to him, and which I will put with
my relics. I am lodging in his room, and with the person who attended
his fatal illness. She gave me his biography as follows: “He was always
good, always polite, and every one loved him;” and then she burst into
tears.
The last grave I looked upon, I will now read to you: “Died, March 1st,
1832, Frances Anne, Countess Colonna de Walewski, daughter of the late
John Bulkeley, Esq., of Lisbon, widow of the late General Humphreys, of
the United States, minister in Spain and Portugal.”--I could write a
romance at the foot of this monument. I lingered here until the last
glimmerings of day faded, and night covered all but the bleak and snowy
marble. I then descended the hill, and with many a solemn reflection,
reached my solitary lodge in the Faubourg St. Germain.
Let us reason awhile about the grave. The custom of locating grave yards
in cities and towns, so universal in America, has been discontinued in
nearly all these old countries of Europe. France has set the excellent
example, which has been followed through the continent, and the large
towns of England--London, Liverpool, Manchester, Cheltenham, and several
others--and all the world acknowledges its necessity. Such a measure was
not adopted here until the agency of burying grounds in corrupting the
air and producing disease, was proved by numerous examples and
experiments.
An account of these, contained in several hundred pages, was published
by Maset, secretary to the Academy of Dijon, the one-twentieth part of
which would fill with terror all those who live in dangerous contiguity
with a city grave-yard. It is high time your towns in America should
give this subject a serious attention. Your grave-yards are multiplying
in number and extent prodigiously in the midst of communities which are
likely, in a few years, to be numerously increased. Your Pottsville,
which is about eight years old, has already six grave-yards, whose
population nearly equals that of the village.
All those who die upon the railroads, mines, and canals, for twenty
miles around, have themselves carried in and buried in town--as if to be
convenient to market. A citizen of Pottsville does consent sometimes to
reside in the country during his lifetime, but he does not think it
genteel to pass his eternity out of town; and your miner soothes himself
with the consolation that though he has many toils and perils in life,
he will one day come out of the ground to be buried in Pottsville. It is
in their infancy that such evils ought to be averted. They are more
easily prevented than cured. And there are enough of other
considerations besides health to urge the importance of the subject.
Every body knows the indecent irreverence and general inattention with
which grave-yards are regarded in towns and cities. In many of them
monuments are defaced and scribbled on, and the place even desecrated
sometimes by the obscenity and brutal violation of visitors. To prevent
this, they are often enclosed by high walls and rendered invisible. If
the object were to forget one’s ancestors there could not be a better
contrivance. It is worth while to squander away the best parts of a city
to bring one’s deceased parents into oblivion or contempt! That this is
the case cannot be denied. The citizen, the clergyman, the grave-digger,
and the sexton, are all affected by the bones of their ancestors alike.
Who first brought this system of vampyrism into use? It was at least
modern. At Babylon they buried the dead in the valley of ... look into
your Bible; and the valley of Jehoshaphat, I believe, was out of town.
The interment of the dead within the precincts of the city was
prohibited at Rome by law. The Greeks had the same regulation, and
forbade expressly that the temples of the gods should be profaned by the
sepulture of the dead. The Achæans buried only one man in town,
Aratus--look into your Plutarch. If they had governed our city councils
they would have buried us all out of town, except “Benjamin Franklin,
and Deborah his wife.” The first Christians followed the Pagans and Jews
in this, and for a long time graves were not allowed to encroach upon
the sanctuary of the church. But some pious and popular bishop having
died in the course of time, I presume they buried him with his church,
as they bury an Indian with his canoe; and then another and another, or
perhaps some fat and lazy priest wished to have his dead family about
him for the convenience of praying upon them. Who is going all the way
to Père la Chaise? So he could just step out in his gown and slippers
and dismiss the poor soul to purgatory, and then step back again to his
_soupe à la Julien_. And then came avarice to sanction this convenience.
We can heap generation upon generation and sell a church-yard over and
over again to eternity.
Make me chief burgess of Pottsville, and I will provide a choice piece
of ground overlooking the village, and apart from the living
habitations--on a single plot, and with separate apartments for the
several denominations; and this I will cultivate tastefully with trees
and shrubbery, and lay it out with agreeable walks.
I will make the dead an ornament, instead of a nuisance and deformity to
the living; and I will bind your erratic population to the soil, by the
decency with which I will bury their fathers and mothers; and by
improving the kindred affections, I will improve, at the same time, the
moral and religious feelings of the community. I will carve out, from
one of your rugged hills, a decent and solitary retreat, where we may
sometimes escape from the business, the anxieties and frivolities of
life, and where we may peruse the last sad page of our own history, upon
the silent and solemn annals of the grave.
In a place of decent appearance, and of public resort and ample space,
we have the means (which we have not in our shabby and contracted
grave-yards of the towns) of paying honour to the memory of an eminent
citizen, or public benefactor; a duty in which we are negligent beyond
the example of all other nations; and emulating the princely splendour
of Europe in other things, we cannot excuse ourselves upon the
republicanism and simplicity of our tastes, in this. Are the virtues of
a great man so graven upon our memories, that he needs no other
memorial? And are we all so virtuous, ourselves and our children, as to
need no excitements to emulation?--To do honour to those who have
performed eminent service to the community, is as well a commendable
policy, as it is an act of justice and gratitude. It produces, in
generous minds, a rivalship of honourable actions. It makes one good
deed the parent of a numerous offspring. It is the seed of virtue--the
grain of corn that rewards the cultivator with a full and ripened ear.
On the other hand, neglect, the cold neglect that is practised in our
country, freezes the current of public spirit; and the people, who are
guilty of it, need not complain that they are barren of generous
actions, or that they, who have been fortunate in acquiring wealth,
should choose to spend it rather upon selfish and transitory interests,
than upon schemes of permanent public utility. Even our savages pay
respectful honours to the dead, and a luxury of grave-yards is of all
antiquity; it has even the most ancient scriptural authority in favour
of it.--“Thou art a mighty prince, in the _choicest_ of our sepulchres
bury thy dead.”--(Genesis).
I will now put an end to this long letter, with a few of the French
regulations for the inhumation of the dead of cities and towns.
All cemeteries are required to be located without the towns, avoiding
low, wet, or confined situations. On an elevated site, the fœtid
emanations are dispersed by the winds. The dead bodies are to be covered
with, at least, four feet of earth, and placed in such a manner that
there may be four feet of interval between each, and two feet at the
head and foot--about fifty-two square feet for each corpse. It is known,
from experiment, that animal decomposition requires about four years,
and the grave-yard is to be made four times greater than appears
necessary for the number of persons to be interred in it.
The graves are disposed of in perpetuity, or in temporary cessions of
six years; the former at twenty-five dollars per metre, of three feet;
two metres are required for a grave; and the latter at ten dollars.
_These_ are disposable anew at the end of the term--the first occupant
having the “refusal.” From the extent of the grounds, this has not yet
been required. But Death has nearly filled up the whole space, and is
looking out for additions to his estate. A miser, who lives next door to
him, taking advantage of his necessity, asks, for three-quarters of an
acre, twelve thousand dollars!
All the funerals are in the hands of a company, who have their office,
keep a registry of the dead, and attend to all their wants. Companies
having no souls, the French fulfil the scriptures, and “let the dead
bury the dead.” Having its stock of carriages, grave-diggers, weepers,
and all such things on hand, the company is enabled, they say, to bury
cheaper than the individuals themselves. It has, besides, a fixed price
for the rich, which enables it to eat an annual dinner, and to bury the
poor for nothing. The dinner is, no doubt good, but the burying of the
poor, as all things else which are done for nothing in Paris, is
performed in a niggardly and heartless manner. If you make any such
provision for your new grave-yard of Pottsville, let it honour the hand
that confers it. Give the poor man his priest, and apply to a life,
perhaps, of unmerited sorrows--a little extreme unction.
The leaves, nipt by the first frosts, are already strewed thick upon the
Luxembourg; and your hills are, no doubt, putting on their variegated
hues of the autumn. My advice is, that you dissolve the cold, by putting
largely of the anthracite upon your grate; that you bring out your old
wine, and be joyful, while your knees are green--see where Père la
Chaise stands beckoning from the heights of Mont-Louis.--I give my
compliments to the girls, and say you sweet, good night.