for his confessor, Pere
la Chaise, the celebrated Jesuit, who, with Madame de Maintenon,
governed France. Rising above the thousands of tombs which surround
it, it displays itself a wrecked and mouldering monument of ancient
splendour, and the mutability of human affairs! This spot became
afterwards a place of public promenade and great resort, from the
beauty of its position overlooking all Paris; and though so often
the scene of festivity and pleasure, now presents to the eye of the
beholder a mournfully interesting sight of tombs and sarcophagi,
intermixed with various fruit trees, cypress groves, the choicest
flowers, and rarest shrubs.
From the rising ground, above the building of Pere La Chaise, a most
delightful view displays itself. The city of Paris appears to stand
in the centre of a vast amphitheatre. The heights of Belleville,
Montmartre, and Menilmontant, in the west. To the east, the beautiful
plain of Saint-Mande, Montreuil, and Vincennes, with the lofty towers
of its fortress.--The fertile banks of the river Marne, are on the
North, and in the South, the horizon encircles Bicetre and Meudon.
The various tombs are placed without order or regularity: they are
mostly enclosed with trellis work of wood, sometimes by iron railing;
and consist of a small marble column, a pyramid, a sarcophagus, or a
single slab, just as may have suited the fancy or the taste of the
friends of the departed.--Some surrounded with cypress, some with
roses, myrtles, and the choicest exotics; others with evergreens, and
not unfrequently a single weeping willow, with the addition of a rose
tree!
This intermixture of the sweetest scented flowers and fruit trees, in
a burying ground, among the finest pieces of sculptured marble, with
evergreens growing over them, in the form of arbours, and furnished
with seats, cannot fail to produce in the mind of the person who views
it for the first time, peculiar and uncommon feelings of domestic
melancholy, mingled with pleasing tenderness.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107