Who could be otherwise than powerfully affected, as I was, by the
first objects that presented themselves to me on entering the
place?--A mother and her two sons, kneeling in pious devotion at the
foot of the husband's and the father's grave! At a short distance, a
female of elegant form, watering and dressing the earth around some
plants at her lover's tomb!--not a day, and seldom an hour, passes,
but some one is seen either weeping over the remains of a departed
relative, or watching with pious solicitude the flowers that spring up
around it.
Among the many interesting objects that presented themselves at my
first visit, was the tomb of Abelard and Heloise, which had not long
since been removed from the convent of the Augustins, where I had seen
it in 1815.
At a little distance, to the left of the former, was the burial place
of Labedoyere. The fate of this brave and unfortunate officer is well
known; his youth, and misled zeal, have procured him a sympathy which
his fellow sufferer Marshal Ney did not find, and did not merit.
In the centre of a square plot of ground enclosed with lattice work,
is erected a wooden cross, painted black. Neither marble, nor stone,
nor letters, indicate his name. Two pots of roses, and a tuft of
violets, alone marked the spot, which is carefully weeded. There is
something more affecting in all this simplicity, something, in my
mind, that goes more directly home to the heart, than in the most
splendid monument or the most studied eulogium.
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