THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
of $127. for burial purposes is not unreasonable 
where the deceased left an estate of $800. In this 
case it was also insisted that it was competent to in- 
quire into the price of caskets as between the manu- 
facturer or wholesale dealer and the undertaker or 
retail dealer, and that the witnesses should have been 
compelled to answer that inquiry, or their testimony 
given stricken out. That doctrine the court said it 
was not prepared to subscribe to where the article 
of merchandise, as here, has a market value, as 
fi.xed by the trade as between the undertaker and 
his customers. The cost price between the manu- 
facturer and the undertaker would not in such a case 
furnish a correct criterion as to the price between 
the undertaker and his customers, and an inquiry 
into it would lead to unsafe and unprofitable specu- 
lation on the part of the court or jury as to the rate 
of profit which should be charged by the undertaker, 
and would not be evidence of the market value be- 
tween the last-named parties; that value must be 
measured by the market price between the under- 
taker and his customers as regulated by competition 
and the law of demand and supply. 
Pere La Chaise, Paris. 
-551^.5 TO IW? fREKCH CeilEPlili 
the limits of the 
Paris, that gay, 
beautiful capital of 
France, where 
one sees more 
of life, fashion 
and g a i e t y , 
than in any 
other city in 
the world ; 
where to be vi- 
vacious, charm- 
ing and happy 
at all times, 
seems to be the 
principal ob- 
ject and duty 
of life, is situ- 
ated the grand- 
est, most im- 
pressive and 
Strange incon- 
gloomy cemetery in the world ! 
gruity, as though under the sunny skies of this 
lovely land, this laughter- loving people needed 
something solemn and awful to remind them of the 
change and passing away of all things. 
It is a positively gruesome place to visit, and one 
hurries through, as though performing a self-imposed 
duty or penance. And yet the ashes of more illus- 
trious dead are gathered together here than in any 
other spot in the world. 
This famous cemetery was presented to the 
Jesuits late in 1700, by Pere La Chaise, the con- 
fessor and advisor of Louis XIV, hence its name. 
When the Jesuits were expelled from France this 
property changed hands many times, until finally 
bought by the municipal authorities early in 1800. 
Originally about fifty acres, it now exceeds two 
hundred, and about fifty burials a day take place 
here. There are twenty-two cemeteries near Paris, 
and unlike our American institutions of the kind, 
are all owned by the city. The poor dead are 
buried in what are called “Fosses Communes, ” long 
trenches, containing thirty or forty coffins, placed 
several deep. This mode of burial costs about four 
dollars, and at the end of five years the ground is 
cleared and used all over again. Graves can also be 
leased for ten years for ten dollars. The wealthy, 
of course, buy separate lots outright, as we do here, 
and erect magnificent monuments ; one hundred 
dollars being the cost of a piece of ground six feet 
square, a family lot is usually about the length and 
breadth of a casket, the caskets being placed on top 
of each other, in graves not infrequently thirty feet 
in depth. 
This is truly a “ city of the dead,” with its short 
streets and long, broad avenues, all paved with 
cobble stones, and tombs and monuments of all 
sizes and designs crowded together like rows of city 
houses. Near the chapel, which is fifty-six feet long 
by twenty-eight wide, quite a plain-looking build- 
ing, though commanding a magnificent view of the 
city, we find the graves of Bellini, Cherubini, 
Talma, and Chopin, the latter whose melancholy 
and dreamy nature is represented by a drooping 
figure in white marble, leaning on a cross. The 
pathetic life-story of Abelard and ‘Heloise is me- 
morialized by a handsome sarcophagus, over which 
is an imposing Greek canopy, built partly of the 
remains of the convent Abelard founded ; the re- 
mains of the lovers, who died in the twelfth century, 
were never found. Here, too, is the tomb of the 
blind poet and faithful translator, DeLille, and is 
fast falling to decay; the great master of romantic 
fiction, Honore de Balzac, is suitably remembered 
by a fine monument, bearing a head and bust of 
himself in marble ; this stone throws a protecting 
shadow over the grave of his most ardent admirer, 
Emil Souvestre. A mammoth slab of white marble 
marks the grave of the historian and poet, so well 
known to America, Jules Michelet. On an emi- 
nence we find the monuments of Beranger, the 
poet; Foy, the orator and general ; and a handsome 
marble to the Countess Demidoff. Near here are 
the graves of Napoleon’s marshals, conspicuous 
among them that of Souchet, who rose from the 
ranks of a private soldier. 
