The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1875-01-21
A BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE.
What Victor Hugo said Mt the Grave OF
Madame Mcuricc, in Paris.

What Victor Hugo said Mt the Grave OF
Madame Meurice, in Paris.
The woman to whom we come to pay
the supreme tribute has honored her sex;
she had all the charms for love, and all
the strength for suffering She leaves
behind her the companion of her life,
Paul Meurice, spirit luminous and
proud, one of the noblest men of our
time. Let us bow before this sacred
tomb.
witnessed their marriage. So pass the
years. / saw them both young, she 80
beautiful, he so radiant unite their future
before the human law and before the law
divine, and give their hands to each other
in hope and morning. / saw that entrance
of two souls into love, which is the true
entrance into life. To-day is it the exit
that we see No; for the heart that re-
mains continues to love, and the soul
that has flown continues to live ! Death
is another entrance, not into mere love,
for the love below was complete, but
into more light.
From that radiant hour of the begin
ming, to the stern hour where we are
now, these two beautiful souls sustained
each other. Life, whatever it may be, is
good travelled thus. She, admirable
woman, painter, musician, artist, had re-
ceived every gift, and was made for every
pride but she was above all, proud of
the reflection of his fame upon herself !;
she took part in his success she felt
herself honored by the applause which
hailed him she participated, smiling, i'll
those splendid ovations at the theater
where the name of Meurice was shouted
amidst acclamations and enthusiasm /;
she had the sweet pride to see unfold for
the future, and triumph before the null
titude, that series of works, strong and
exquisite, which shall have in the litera-
trre of our age a place of light and glory.
Then came the times of trial she ac-
cepted them with stoicism. In our day
the writer should be at need a combat
ant woe to the talent behind which is
not seen conscience A poetry should
be a virtue. Paul Meurice is one of
those clear souls i'll whose depths is seen
duty. He wanted liberty, progress,
truth and justice, and he bore the conse-
quences. This is why, one day, he went
to prison. His wife comprehended this
new glory, and from that day she, who
till then had been only good, became
great.
And later, when disasters came, when
trial took the proportions of public
calamity, she was ready for every abne-
CATION and every devotion.
The history of this age has some never
to-be forgotten days.
At times, in humanity, a certain sub
Unity of the woman appears in the
hours when history becomes terrible, one
would say that her soul seizes the occa-
sion, and seeks to give an example to the
soul of man. Antiquity had the Roman
women the modern ages will have the
French woman. The siege Of Paris has
shown all that woman can be dignity,
firmness, acceptance of privations and
miseries, gaiety in anguish. The bottom
of the soul of the French woman is an
heroic mixture of family and country.
The generous woman i'll this tomb had
all these grandeurs. L have been her
guest in those tragic days; L have seen
her. While her husband did his double
and rude task of writer and soldier, she
also rose before the dawn. She was,
while it was yet night, in the rain, in the
frost, her feet in the snow, to wait long
hours, like the other noble women of the
people, at the doors of the butchers and
bakers, and she brought us back food
and Joy.
For the truest of all joys is duty per-
formed. There is an ideal of woman in
Isaiah there is another in Juvenal
these two ideals the women of Paris have
realized They have had the courage
which is more than bravery, and the
patience which is more than courage.
They have shown, before peril ,intrepidity
and sweetness. They gave to the de-
spairing combatants the encouragement
of the smile. Nothing could conquer
them. Like their husbands, like their
children, they wanted to struggle to the
last hours and in the face of a savage
enemy, under the grapeshot and the
shells, under the furious blast of five
months winter, they refused, even to the
Seine loaded with blocks Of ice, even to
famine, even to death, the surrender of
their town! All let us reverence this
Paris which has produced such women
and such men. Let us go down upon
our knees before the holy city Paris,
by its tremendous resistance, saved
France, which the dishonor of Paris
would have slain, and Europe, which the
death of France would have dishonored.
Let the beautiful soul, flown away, but
present, who at this moment hears me,
be proud all generations surround her
coffin. From the height of the unknown
serenity she can see around her all these
hearts full of her, these friends who
glorify her, this husband who mourns
her. Her memory, at once sorrowful
and enchanting, shall not be effaced. 1t
will tighten our twilight. A memory is
a ray
Let the Eternal Soul in that high
dwelling place receive this immortal
soul. Life is a problem death is the
solution. L repeat it, and it is thus 1
wish to end this farewell, full of hope
the tomb is neither dark nor void. There
is the great light. TO that light let it be
permitted the man who now speaks, to
turn. He who, it may be said, no more
exists here below-he whose ambitions
are all now in death-has the right to
hail in the depths of the infnite-in the
sinister and sublime dazzle of the sepul-
cher, the immense star, God