THE CEMETERY OF MOUNT ST. LOUIS, OR THE PERE LA CHAISE. The Grave of France. Lord Byron. THIS burial ground, in which stands the now deserted house of the celebrated Père La Chaise, the Confessor of Louis XIV. is beyond all comparison the most picturesque and advantageous of those points of view, with which the neighbourhood of Paris abounds. The prospect from the high parts of the ground is commanding and beautiful in the extreme, and stretches from the Castle of Vincennes to MontMartre, an angle of about one hundred and sixty degrees. The city of Paris, with its splendid spires and cupolas burning in the glories of a setting sun, forms a striking contrast to the scene immediately around you. The surface of the cemetery, which extends over a space of sixty acres, is much varied, and of this, judicious advantage has been taken in dotting it with willow, cypress, and other characteristic shrubs. A rich and varied foreground is often presented to the eye by these plantations and portions of the distant city. A line of trees marks to the gaze the sweep of the gay and bustling Boulevard, so much at variance with the melancholy repose of the scene around, chequered as it is by marble monuments, arbours of willow and cypress, garlands of funereal herbs and flowers wreathed around the stones, and religious crosses which continually rise upon the view. The mind becomes powerfully and beneficially excited when it turns from these pathetic records to the majestic splendour of the proud Babel in the distance, glistening in the departing beams of a summer sun. If in wandering through this city of the dead, your eye momentarily encounters the far-off ensigns of life and activity, or your ear is saluted with the subdued hum of the Parisian multitude,a wreath, an epitaph, a name of departed greatness, or the pauper's convoi, rendered still more affecting by the deep stillness around you, recalls your wandering thoughts from sublunary considerations, to the contemplation of that subduing power within whose immediate territory you are walking, and whose wild and melancholy emblems are flashing on the eye in every direction. The number of tombs has greatly increased during the last few years, and fashion and ostentation, which play so many freaks on the busy stage of life, intrude their follies and their fripperies even into this quiet and beautiful sanctuary; and the modest stone with its emblematic cross, over which the cypress mourned, and the willow fondly drooped, has given place to the obelisk, the pyramid, and the temple; for it seems to be the object now to make each succeeding tomb surpass in expense and magnificence the previous erections, and display at once the pride and extravagance of those who raise them. The circumference of the burial ground of Mount St. Louis is upwards of two miles. The house of the Jesuit, Père La Chaise, is rendered by its situation a commanding object; but its architecture is mean, and its tout-ensemble by no means picturesque. It is uninhabited, but large watch-dogs are chained during the day in its lower rooms. Père La Chaise was the general of his order; he was also confessor to his monarch, and having fulfilled the duties of that important situation thirty-four years, died the 20th of January, 1709, aged eighty-five years. There are many tombs in the burial ground of Mount St. Louis, to which the eye of the stranger is particularly directed; some being objects of curiosity on account of the celebrity of the characters they commemorate, and others for the beauty and simplicity of their epitaphial inscriptions. Of the former class, the tomb of the poet Delille, which is situated in the higher part of the ground, under the shade of a bower of linden trees, is one of the most interesting. Those of Moliere, La Fontaine, Eloisa and Abelard, Madame Cottin, Marshals Massena and Ney, with many others of characters scarcely less distinguished, are also well worthy of notice. As a specimen of the pathetic simplicity which is not unfrequently to be met with, in the inscriptions on tombs in this burial ground, we may instance the following brief, but touching epitaph on a young girl A SA FAMILLE ELLE APPORTA LE BONHEUR; IL S'ENFUIT AVEC ELLE! STANZAS. BY MRS. CORNWELL BARON WILSON. THY cheek still wears the blush of youth, Thine eyes retain their wonted glow; Thy lips still breathe the balm of truth, Pure as life's earliest hours could know! Yet art thou changed-I know not why; Changed to the world-if not to me: Thou shunn'st those scenes of revelry, Where spirits young as thine should be! At times an air of pensive grace Will cloud the sunshine of thy smile; Each charm, that once it wore for thee? |