Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/264

226 From the Butte Montmatre is visible in the far east the Butte Chaumont, another hill in the north-eastern part of Paris. The Butte was formerly a chalk pit, and the hill was known as Montfancon and was used for many centuries as a place of public execution. It is said that as many as 100 bodies were sometimes suspended at one and the same time. For a long time the whole neighbourhbod was a den of thieves and robbers and the worst characters in Paris, It was Emperor Napoleon III. who has architecturally done so much for Paris, who cleared the place and laid out a beautiful park here with lakes, and gardens, fine walks and beautiful hills.

South from this hill is the celebrated burial ground called Pere la Chaise. It occupies an area of over 100 acres, and contains over 20,000 monuments. The most interesting spot for the antiquarian is the tomb of Heloise and Abelard, over which a Gothic canopy has been raised. Wreaths are still offered and placed on the grave of these gifted lovers of the Middle Ages. I also saw the grave of Cousin and the monument to Thiers, the graves of the Hugo family, and of Racine, and those La Fontaine and Moliere who sleep side by side. A host of other writers, thinkers and warriors sleep in this common platform of death. Cuvier and Auguste Comte, Sieyes and Talleyrand, MacDonald, Ney and Massena and many others of the greatest and best of Frenchmen sleep in this cemetery.