The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1868-06-24
A Souvenir.

On the heights of Pere Lachaise, that populous
city of the dead overlooking the most splendid capital
of Europe grave without cross or stone or monu-
mental tablet of any kind to tell the name of him who
sleeps beneath Encireled by hedge and planted all
around with beautiful flowers most carefully pre-
served that unhonored grave so aectonaely guarded
and enbamed in hottest silence object Of strange
interest amid the costly monuments surrounding it.
The old guide who passes BY it a score OF times
daily sheds tears as with mingled sorrow and pride,
he points and, in broken English, excaims, " There
sleeps the brayest Of the brave" In that singular
grave with its evergreen hedge and fadeless flowers,
rest the remains of the soldier, who made the last
charge at Waterloo, with the broken columns of the
Old Guard, in the defense of the persisted Empire ;
and CT that peerless patriot who with permission to
retire into exile and enjoy the evening of his stormy
life in the calm serenitude of protected security pre-
ferged to die Frenchman upon the soil Of France,
rather than live Prussian, banished from his native
land. No monumental marble is needed to tell his
name. Nay, the old guide himself will not profane
the Qnbroken silence that consecrates the spot, to
crafty the inquistiye and eager curiosity of the
stranger his only is, There sleeps the bray
est of the brave" The generation that knew him. to
whom his placid brow and stalwast form familiar,
who, in the twenty years be had batted for France
against the combined powers of Europe, had learned
to associate his with the decisive movement of
nearly every great battle field who had sunk crushed
and hopeless beneath the march of the conqueror as
be retired before their victorious legons at Waterloo
who had heard the fatal crack of musketry on that
gray morning of December when, without fetter on
his limbs fold upon his eyes he calmly gave the
order for his execution: that generation could
erect fitting monument to his memory write any
eptaph worthy Of his deeds worthy of his motives
"They carved not line and they raised not stone,
but left him alone with his glory" Posterity
ing this sacred silence of unutterabe grief has left
the grave as it found it, without cross stone
tablet of any descriptions but, in the vain effort to
give expression to its mute bat expressive sor-
row, it has encircied it with evergreens covered it
with flowers, and consecrated it to the pilgrims of
every cline, as the shrine of patriotism.
The splendid sorcophagus of his old chief, under
meath the dome of the Invades telling as it does of
the final qualification of his very last wish, that ''his
remains should repose on the banks of the Seine in
the midst of that French people he had loved SO we'll
in the hesrt of that Paris he had often, and in such
variety of ways, so handsomely embelished and
adorned reyerberatng to-day the cries of vive pempe
reur is not SO suggestive to us, Of the South in the
hopes it may inspire is that unadorned grave in the
Pere Lachase for the lessons it teaches and the duties
it enons 1t is better for u.s. true and brave men,
to die upon own soil, than to seek for homes in
other lands. We, of this generation, can write no
fitting epitaph upon the &c lost cause or erect any
suitable monument its grave. Posterity will
doubtless respect the silence of our voceess woe and
will attempt neither the the other but content
itself with the simple decoration Of flowers and the
expressive embroidery Of the evergreen. Time, too,
in soening the asperites of forgotten struggle will
bring visitors from every State and from every land
to walk through city of the dead. Some old his
toric guide will point out here and there, the monu
ments alike of friends and foes, in life but now in
dust their enmities forgotten; and may
hap he will weep over some tombless grave to the
g lost cause"
This feeling, true TO the poet and to the pilgrim,
will yield as he leaves the heights of our Pore La
haise, to minge in the gay populace below rejecting
n the many hues of its myriad character, great ma
ion once more restored to life, proud of all its buried
leroes its past glories and its present grandeur.
Let us, then, be up and doing
With heart for any fate
Still achieving, still pursuing
Ipl q labor tn