( 45 ) 



PARISIAN SKETCHES. 

 No. I. CEMETERY OF MONTMARTRE 



AMONG the thousands of English who run to see the cemetery of 

 Ptre la Chaise, not one in a hundred ever thinks of going to see 

 that of Montmartre ; which, however, is, in my humble opinion, 

 fully as well worth seeing as its more modern rival. There is some- 

 thing in Montmartre itself peculiarly interesting; its heights forming 

 so conspicuous a feature in the panoramic view around, and so 

 effectually commanding- the proud city of Paris itself, that glitters at 

 its feet; its antique feodal-looking mills crowning its summits, its 

 winding narrow streets, all speak of the past, and will incline the 

 pensive loiterer to muse on ages and generations bygone : the 

 cemetery, too, seems to belong more generally to the people, to the 

 great mass of human beings who can be characterised by no other 

 designation : it is with them, after all, that our human sympathies 

 are more really linked than with the higher classes, who, whilst they 

 claim, and seem to do so somewhat imperiously, the respect due to 

 them individually, for their rank, talent, or power, suspend the 

 feelings with which we involuntarily regard the sorrows of those who 

 ask our condolence, simply because they weep. It is these humble 

 sorrows that interest me at Montmartre. A mechanic leading his 

 children to the grave of their mother, a widow kneeling with her 

 orphans at the edge of the sod that covers her husband, a son or 

 daughter coming to renew the garlands on the tomb of a parent, 

 (whose love they find too late, sometimes, no other love can supply 

 with such disinterestedness) an artisan visiting the spot where may 

 rest the companion of his morning life, the associate of his maturer 

 labours, to recall their social hours, and supply for a moment, by an 

 ejaculation to his memory, the void his departure may have left in 

 his bosom, such are the sights that may be seen every day and 

 every hour at Montmartre : and who can see them without having 

 such sympathies awakened, as, by removing us farther from self, 

 bring us nearer to heaven ? Yes, it is among the graves of the pool- 

 that grief holds her real court, and sympathy pays her real homage ! 

 Within the gilded grilles that guard the marble mausoleum, we see 

 the weeds springing, and an air of abandonment strangely at variance 

 with the pompous emblazonment of the titles and virtues of the 

 defunct, in whose honour it may be raised, and with the eternal 

 regrets that are vowed to their memory ; but look at the humble 

 grave, unenclosed, save by a little border of box, or mignonette ; 

 look at the smooth sod that covers it, the watered roses and lilies 

 and pensees with which it is decked, the fresh wreaths that hang on 

 the simple stone, or still simpler wooden cross, which has no other 

 record to tell, but the brief, the comprehensive one of all the human 

 race 



" They suffered and they died !" 



