Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-25
A FAMOUS CEMETERY
Pere Lachaise,. the Westminster
Abbey of France.
THE T0MBS OF THE MIGHTY
Around the Monument to Abelard and
Heloise.
BARTHOLOME'S "AUX morris"
Resting Place of Nations Great
Mournful Exiles-Tomb-Ch apels
of Noted Families.
BARTHOLOME'S "AUX Morris

Special Correspondence Of The Star
PARIS. November 8, 1905.
On All Souls Day, November 1, just
past, 100000 persons visited the single GEM
etery of Pere Lachaise in Paris.
1t was the day of the dead-"the only day
of the year when Paris ceases to laugh and
chatter"
We Americans in Paris who have just
been through it are once again i'm
pressed by a whole population fiocking
TO its burial places. And of them all the
most remarkable by far is that Of Pere
Lachaise, the Westminster Abbey Of
France.
The Pantheon was meant to serve the
purpose in 1855; but it has not had much
time to fill up and as the families of great
men frequently object to its lack Of reli-
gious conservation, 1t holds scarce more
than Rousseau. Votaire, Lazare, Carnot
Victor Hugo and lot of forgotten senators
of the first empire.
Pere Lachaise has been exactly hundred
years in gathering its illustrious population,
but the mighty departed have been moved
10 II from many another cemetery. AL
ready 1t Is so full that none but perpetual
concessions" are granted In 1t. Two square
yards. $500. without the expenses which
amount to as much more, with $50 per cent
Increase for each yard-square thereafter!
Tomb of Abelard and Heloise.
Mark Twain in 'Innocents Abroad" tells
of his visit to the tomb of Abelard and
Heloise at Pere Lachaise. 1t is the first
thing tourists ask to see-the resting place
of the mighty philosopher of the eleventh
century and of the tender girl pupil who
loved him.
Fulbert. her uncle. hired braves to infict
nameless mutilation on him. Heloise be-
came an abbess. Abelard went back to phi
losophy. and their letters are read by
conscientious tourists before sailing Here
they lie In stone. beneath a Gothic pavilion
whose authenticity Is disputed. Indeed,
Alex Lenoir. the antiqnary, claimed to have
put it together from various pieces after
the French reyolution.
The tomb beneath, however is thought To
be in part the original. Lenoir claimed
that the mask is that of Heloise"
Are the bodies underneath? They were
declared to be two years ago, when
Toudouse's giant decoration of Abel
ard and his school was shown at the sa-
Ion before being put up in the Sorbonne.
All around these immortal lovers lie the
mighty dead OF France.
Not kings and princes. but statesmen,
financiers, composers, poets. playwrights,
painters. actors princes of industry and
France-the mothers of great bourgeois
families.
Among the Tombs of the Mighty.
There lies Balzac, his bust surrounding
the monument. 1t is the same with Alfred
de Musset, whose poems today sell more
than any modern, because they voice the
emotions of average men. Cassimir Della
vigne, considered a great poet before Victor
Hugo came up, has an enormous granite
STEELE with life-size mourning muse. Vic
tor Hugo himself has been removed to that
unsuccessful imitation of Westminster Alb
hey, the Pantheon. Certainly he would
have preferred to remain in the Hugo
family vault at Pere Lachaise II only TO
be close to Moliere and La Fontaine
These two glories OF French litera ture
lie under two parade sarcophagi, raised on
short pillars, in one of the few cleared
spaces of this cemetery. Racine. the
tragic playwright, has an enormous Eeyp-
tian-looking monument.
Here Is the tomb of Talma, the mos,
illustrious actor OF Napoleon's time. the
sarcophagus almost hidden in a bower OF
century-old laurels. Rachel the creates,
tragic actress OF all times In France lies
between two Rochschild families further
on.
To be representative Of the French
genius. Pere Lachaise ought to be rich In
playwrights and composers OF operas. II
is Scribe has veritable obelsk. Boiel-
dieu has two-story STEELE with his me-