The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1908-12-04
A FAMOUS CEMETERY
Pere Lachaise Is One of the
Landmarks of Paris.
IT HAS A STORMY HISTORY
This Picturesque Burial Place ha,
Served a. a battle-ground as we'll as
a Graveyard-Its Monuments, Lovers
and D~isconsolate Widows.


Tere Lachaise is the largest and
quite the mo interesting Of the Paris
cemeteries and named after the jesuit,
confessor Of Louis XIV, whose coun.
try seat occupied the site of the present
chapel until the ground was made q
cemetery in 1904. 1t covers 40 acres
of ground. Is picturesque, but quite I'm,
lovely. Hare wrote about the tombs
that weight was their chief peculiar.
ity aud that all the monuments looked
as If each family had tried to pile as
much marble as possible on to their
deceased relatives"
Pere Lachaise has a stormy history.
In 1914 the Russians fought the French
there II gave them a beating. Dur.
ing he the Versaillais and
Communards fought several pitched
battles among the tombstones and did
considerable damage. But it is not
so nue. with the history of the GENE.
terry as with the people buried in il
that we have to deal. A volume might
be filled with the mere list of all the
celebrated men and women buried in
1t, for, as Victor Hugo wrote, being
buried in Pere Lachaise is like having
mahogany f~urniture-a sign Of Gle.
gance.'
In Pere Lachaise the monument
which attracts most visitors is that of
jAbelard and Helotse. the TIVE most ia,
nous lovers in the world. The monu-
ment was first erected 637 years after
their death and brought to Pere La
chaise in 1917 from the museum where
1t had been during the revolution. An,
other famous lover. Alfred de Musset.
lies buried not far from the two will,
lows owe the graves of Heloise and
Abelard. David, the painter; Rachel,
the actress: Balzac. Scribe, Michelet
and many other well known folk lie
near at hand. Admiral Sir Sydney
Smith, Lord Seymour and other we'll
known Englishmen are to be found In
other portions of the cemetery, while
literature is represented not only by
great authors. but by LesurQues, the
victim Of Dubosc in the famous legal
Lyons Mail imbroeio.
But Pere Lachaise has more romance
than In its tombstones. Chatting one
day with one of he old soldiers who
are the keepers of this grim park, l
learned some curious facts about it.
I'VE never have a dull moment" the
man said. "You may think that our
time here is monotonous, but you are
quite wrong II you do so. To begin
with. there are the burglars. The
cemetery is overrun with them. There
are three kinds Of burglars. There
are the connoisseurs who often get
away with valuable prizes, for you
will be surprised at the works Of art
Of small size which people put in their
chapels. The window is broken. a
stick slipped through the hole, and all
sorts of things worth having are fished
out: then the bronze stealers. who
take away AS much as they can carry
in their special pockets and make from
Is to 90 francs a day at the game until
we catch them.
"A little while e a bust weighing
forty pounds was taken out OF the
| cemetery over OuC ~ lHC "dllO. DuC
the most curious form Of robbery is,
perhaps, that Of the pearl wreaths.
Women are the principal oRenders.
They select the new Ones, which an
not weather stained, f1atten them with
their backs against the tombstone.
slip them under their dresses, and
when they have got away with then
1--WE have no right to search even sus-
picious looking customers) sell them
to dealers. to whom they tell the well
worn story Of a poor workwoman who
has need Of food. ,
"Yeu would hardly believe it, but
Pere Lachaise," said the keeper, lis a
favorite meeting place for lovers. We
get lovers Of all ages, and perhaps
more s%choolboys and schoolgirls than
anything else. But the three most
curious things we see here in the GENE.
terry are the forlorn widows, the letter
boxes and the cafe" 1.-THE cafe"' ]
asked. Yes. There are hundreds OF
people in Paris who refuse to believe
that their dead do not enjoy after
death the good things they used to like
when they were alive. Mothers bring
apples and sweets and leave them on
the tombstones Of their children. PEG.
pie bring wine and glasses, and there
is one old gentleman who leaves a
potato salad on his sons tombstone
regularly every Sunday. OF course
the children soon find out these things,
and we have never been able to con-
vince the people who bring them OF
the absurdity Of doing SO. 1t is a very
harmless superstition, after all"
"And the letter boxes! l asked
Lovers letter boxes!' said the guard
ian. There are dozens Of them In
all parts of Pere Lachaise. Sometimes
they are holes in the trunks Of trees;
sometimes they are little hollows un
der stones.
1.-The inconsolable widow is a fire.
quent visitor. She Is a pretty woman
and black suits her. She kneels down
by a tombstone, rarely the same one.
and when a likely looking mourner OF
the other sex appears bursts into tears.
He consoles her pretty soon, and the