The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-15
GRAVE OF PAUL JONES BONES REST IN AN ABANDONED CEMETERY IN PARIS. old House Stands Over Burial Place of Father of the Amer.
 ican Navy.

Paris Letter In New York Tribune
 Where was John Paul Jones burieds'' is . question that has for many years been asked by American visitors to Paris. and was not satisfactorily answered until October 1899, when. at the instigation of Henry vignaud. who. besides being secretary of the United States embassy here. ia an eminent aFchasoi- ogist, several learned societies institutsd . systematic search for the burial place of the founder of the American navy. It may now be accepted as an historical fact that the body Ot John Paul Jones reposes beneath the house bearing No. l Rue des Eclusas saint-MaFtin, built on corner of a cemetery discontinued as such in t7e3. where it was buried on July 20, l792. There Is no evidence of the body ever having been exhumed. have several times visited the premises but am convinced that any efforts to identify or recover the bones would be useless. The result of all in. vtsttsations so far made has been to locate an area of about twenty yards square, tn which were buried a great number of bodies including that of John Paul Jones. The sub soil of this area consists Of what is tech. nically known as corpse loam''-a special con dition peculiar to oveFsaturated Kraveyards Excavation has disclosed the presence in thii gelatinous corpse ioam of many fragments OI human skulls. shin bones and shoulder blades
 Any approach to Identification Is out of ths question. There Is no documentary evidence that John Paul Jones's body was placed at thu time of burial in a lead coffin or that 1t wa clothed in naval uniform, In which case ths metal buttons, sword. brass buckles or othei imperishable relics might be discovered ana serve to establish an approximate identifca ton. The only practical suggestion for com meworation of the unmarked grave of JohI Paul Jones Is to obtain possession of the di lapidated houses and sheds that now stand or the site and replace them by a monument The site of in an Out-of-the-way part oe th' city, far from the American quarter of Paris situated behind the great Eastern Railwa, station (Gare dc rEsO and rarely visited b. any one. It Is in the midst of the workmen district No doubt the municipal authoTitiei of Paris would gladly cooperate in any deh nite proposition having for its object th, commemoration of the grave of the distin guished American.
 Credit to Ricaudy.
 The merit of locating the site of the burial place of John Paul Jones is mainly due tS a Parisian archaeologist. M. de Ricaudy. who in 1898. discovered the long sought for re. mains of Turgot. M. de Ricaudy. after long researches. found the correspondence of the gatekeeper of the cemetery for foreign Protest. ants. and also ascertained from Q certihe copy-probabiy the only one extant-of the acte dc decis. or document attesting the death. that John Paul Jones died at Paris in the house formerly numbered 42 Rue de Tournon, on July 8. l7e2. first year of the French Rs- public,) in the 18th year Of his age. The cause of death Is formally recorded as dropsy of the chest ('hydropIsie de poitrine. Tht
 
 authorities to have been defrayed by tho French Government. John Paul Jones was q Protestant and his death occurred during th' most stormy period of the French Revolution It should be noted that the original record oj the deceased, together with all documents re- lating to the burial of Protestants in Paris. was destroyed in 1871. when the Hotel de Vile and the building in the Avenue Victoria. where the municipal archives were kept, were burned by ths commune. The confusion in regard tc where John Paul Jones was buried. noticed fin the works of the American and French bl' oRraphers. is due' to obstacles that would have proved insurmountabls had not M. de Ricaudy chanced to find in the archives O. the Protestant Church of the orotoire a voium- inous correspondence relating to an impecu- nious gatekeeper (concerge) of little known cemetery fin Paris. who applied in vain for the payment of his salary to the ministry of for eign affairs. to the municipality of Paris and to the Protestant consistory. To appreciate the difficulty of finding the remains of . Protest ant buried in Paris during the last century 1t may be necessary to refer for a moment to a dark and intolerant page of French history.
 Bigotry of Louis XIV.
 The burial of Protestants whether native oi foreign. was actually prohibited in France b. a tyrannical decree issued by Louis XIV in 6s5, shortly after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. For nearly a century PFotestants were clandestInely buried in cellars or in pri- vate land; sometimes in sites adjoining tn, embassies of foreign Protestant powers like those of England, Holland or Sweden, but ly and with the connivance of concierges oS gatekeepers owing to the strong remon- strances made by M. Opp. the Dutch ambassa-